How do I transition from the prong collar to a flat collar for walks?

Can I ask why you can’t just continue using the prong? If your dogs practiced pulling for years on a flat collar, they will often go back to default behavior when you take the prong off. How long have you worked with them on the prong collar? A lot of folks don’t put in the number of repetitions needed to retrain the behavior they want. Retraining takes much longer than teaching it correctly in the beginning.

I would recommend putting a leash on the prong and another leash on the flat collar, so you have a way to remind the dogs not to pull when they are on a leash no matter what collar they are wearing. This will take some coordination and manipulating multiple leashes and it will likely be hard to do this with 2 dogs at the same time.

I always have my training tools on my dog when I have them out, even if I think I don’t need them. If you aren’t planning on putting your dogs in a competition where prongs aren’t allowed, I would advise continuing to use the prong collars.

Cindy Rhodes