eph94

Have you ever put a prong collar around your own neck? I have. And believe me when I say that it is MUCH more comfortable than even a plain old nylon slip (i.e. choke) collar. I'm even amazed at how well the prong works versus the slip with the difference in "pain" each one delivers. Gosh, the the nylon slip collar had me gasping for air, while a similar use of force (doled out by my lovely spouse) with a prong collar just provide mild discomfort. Yes, the prong collar looks like some medieval torture tool yet the irony of it all is that the slip collar doles out a much harsher punishment, from my own experience on my own neck. Prong collars can even be outfitted with nylon/rubber tips. But if the prong collar I used had those tips, I would have never listened to my wife on the other end of the leash because then it would not have been uncomfortable at all.

MIA

I personally would never correct using a prong!!!! AKA pop with a prong, from what I have been taught that is NOT how they are supposed to be used. Correction collars are the choke, or martingale, even a flat buckle collar but not a prong.

They way I train is I look at what motivates the dog, what keeps them focused and what makes them want to work. I have three personal dogs and do rescue so I am constantly working dogs but no dog is exactly the same so you need to figure out what will work for the dog. I have trained all my dogs differently with slight variations utilizing many different training methods as they all are motivated differently.

So what I suggest to you is take your dog to a local tennis court or your yard and play with him, see what makes him want to focus on you, is it food, is it funny talk, what makes him want to do something for you.

With Mocha my dobe, food didn't work, she lost her mind, so it was all praise with the odd correction when she got totally focused on something but not a harsh correction, just a little wake up. Corrections need not be harsh unless you have a raging mental case at the end of your leash but I am guessing you don't.

So take the time to see what makes your dog tick and go from there.

Cynosis

This is exactly my experience as well; it's not always just about treats or just about tug or just about praise, it's whatever happens to work for your dog.

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Dobemom2b

I don't use a prong to self correct however he will hit the end of it after a cat especially if it is under a bush where I don't notice it until he lunges for it.

I have the tips on his prong now that luvbirds was kind enough to send me peteys old one.

One thing I am a bit leary about is not correcting hard enough and my corrections becoming nagging that he will tune out. She corrected very hard, harder than I imagine I can even yank because of medical issues. Thing is she only had to do it once or twice and she had 100% focus and a perfect heel even on turns to the inside.

Dobemom2b

Yea it's always worked that way for me before too.

His biggest motivator is a cat, stick on in your pocket and other than the time hes knocking you down or trying to jump up or climb after it, you have his eyes 100%

The tug he will work for but not for long, treats work inside but not walking he gets too wound up.

Cynosis

Dobemom2b, have you worked on a very strong "leave it"? Forgive me if you've already tried this, but with issues like what you're talking about regarding chasing cats, in the past I've found it effective to teach a strong "leave it". Proof it with very alluring distractions, and work your way up to his ultimate cat temptation. Sorry if you've already tried this-- if not, it could be an option for you.

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Dobemom2b

Don't be sorry any suggestions are welcome. Yes we have been working on leave it even with cats and he does pretty good as long as I see the cat and can tell him before he reacts. We have even progressed to walking within 2ft of a cat laying in the grass by the sidewalk. I admit it still had his focus as we went by but I had already taken the slack out of his leash and he didn't try to lunge. Just gave it the evil eye lol. I know that taking the slack out is something that shows him I am tense but figured you cant get from a to k without going through d first.

In the house we do leave it for treats layed in front of him, when he sticks his dober nose after something he shouldnt have and with his bowl when its put down and he is improving its just ooooo so very slowly. Stuff like this the + seems it will work eventually. He is very smart and I wonder how right the last ob instructor is in that he is smart enough to manipulate me because he knows I don't like to correct the crap out of him.

I missed the peak learning peroids but may have made it worse myself by not making him wear the prong younger to get him past the wild child stage. I don't want to squish his drives just redirect them but that hasn't seemed to calm him down as much as simply getting older has.

I guess part of it is I am comparing him to other people on the forums pups and what issues they post about.

Since this most recent ob instructor is dead set on corrections with a prong it made me wonder how many have had to do it that way. She owns 3 dobes.

Quita

I train on a buckle collar and harness. Risa does use a slip/choke nylon show collar when she's at the show. She pulls like crazy when she wears her show collar, but she's learned from various handlers that pulling is OK when she has her show collar on. With the buckle collar, she is much, much better. I have taught her that if she pulls with the buckle, she goes nowhere. Most of my "corrections" occur when she is distracted by another dog, stranger in the distance, etc. I use the correction to try and get her focus back on me. Frequently food and toys will not work at this time. She's just too over stimulated to care about food or toys. When this happens, I slide the buckle high on her neck. This gives me more control. I then put pressure by pulling up on the leash, but I don't do it so hard that her feet come off the ground. I'll put pressure and tell her "quiet" to get her to stop barking. I'll also use pressure in this way to put her into a sit position. I won't let her get up until she settles down and starts to focus back on me. I used to use traditional choke collars and traditional "pops" when I didn't know of any other methods. Once in a blue moon, when I'm really frustrated, I resort to a small pop. To be honest, however, it doesn't seem to have any effect. I find that I'm more successful using positive reinforcement, motivation, food, tugs, distractions, and the correction that was described above. I was getting very frustrated with Risa's barking. She was barking at strangers, neighbors coming home, anything in the dark, etc. Nothing was working. I got the suggestion for slowly pulling up on the leash from k9Jarko.... and it worked! She'll still try and bark, but I can get her quiet much, much faster when I use this technique. It works well. If she is pulling when we walk, I do not use a pop. I either change directions and use my voice and body gestures to get her focus back on me, or I just freeze in place and don't move forward until she looks at me and loosens the leash on her own. Sometimes when we do this, she does, indeed, give herself a small "pop." She'll pull to the end of the leash and I don't move. As a result, depending on her movements, there can sometimes be a slight "pop" that is created when she goes in one direction but I plant my feet solid and don't move. I also lock my arms and hands on my body so that my arms don't "give in" to her pulling, thereby rewarding her by letting her gain those extra inches forward. (You can not move forward but still let your arms extend forward as the dog pulls. This is giving the dog the extra leash that it wants.. and it continues to pull forward. I make sure that Risa doesn't get any extra inches from me. I found that locking my arms into my body has made a difference. She KNOWS that when I do this, she's not going to get any extra distance from the leash.)

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Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

Dobemom2b

I have an empty parking lot across the street from me. We use it and the street in front of the house at least once a day for training walks where we don't really go anywhere but circles, reverses and squares. Its a high car traffic area next to it so it is great for that type of distraction, movement and noise. Its also a good place to work on tracking if you use scent in a bottle.

He also gets at least one walk for exercise and to work on his ignoring dogs inside fences, people coming in and out of houses, in yards etc. Part of it he is put on a longer line and allowed to sniff around and be a doggie.

For the first 3mths I had him he was contagious so we had a lot of time to spend in the 2-3 step be a tree yard walks. It did not work as well outside of the yard. I think it works best with young pups.

Rosamburg

Most successful trainers use a combination of positive reward and corrections. The either total compulsion based training or total positive re-inforcement does not produce the best results IMO. There is an element of truth in what the correction-based trainer stated. A dog that is completely reward based trained can fall apart when under stress or conflict. However on the other hand a dog that is completely compulsion trained (I saw some of this in Germany while I was there this winter) usually produces a dog that works very flat, is not lively or "free" in its work.

What I have learned is that there are no corrections given during the teaching phase. Once the dog has learned the exercise in the proofing and securing phases then corrections are introduced. In the training method I follow, the correction never does the job for the dog, they are not "compulesed" into the correct position. Stress is applied but not in a manner that moves the dog into correct positioning.

I definitely use a prong. I definitely pop the leash to correct. I also have a dog that is somewhat of a cow and needs a fairly strong correction to modify her behavior. A nagging under-correction does nothing but raise the threshold of the dog making the problem worse. It is better to discover the threshold and go there and not nag the dog. They think in terms of black and white. To a dog having a handler working in the gray area is what is cruel.