How does the prong collar work? Also, my dog lunges at strangers, how can I stop this behavior?

Question

Hi Mr. Frawley

    I was wondering if you could tell me how the pronged collar works?   I have been taking my yellow lab to obedience classes as he has an issue, which is another story, and they suggested a pronged collar.  I tried one and it works well.  He no longer pulls on it.  Before my hands were so sore after the class.  He is 18 months old.  He does all the basic commands, but he has a problem with barking at strangers and lounging at them.  So far, no bites, but I have been worried about it.  He does not have aggression towards other animals.  He is fine with them.  It is just people.  I can't get him to stop barking until after the person has ignored him and they are no longer of interest until the person says hi to him and then he starts all over again.  Eventually after smelling the person, he starts to come around.  He is a big lab(110 lbs) and I'm not sure if this is a dominance thing or a protection thing (protecting me).  The grand kids come over and he is all over them to play, and they climb all over him, and he doesn't care, but anyone coming into the house he runs at unless I am on him, which I am not, because people just walk in my place.  Some one said he needs obedience training so I'm trying that to see if it works.  Another trainer told me for $240 for an hour he would assess my dog and tell me what his problem is!  I was leery of that one.  So I'm going the easy was first.  Charlie is not fixed, and we didn't want to do that.  I have raised Rotties with no problem.  They were very obedient.  I have never had a lab before and people tell me he will settle when he turns two.  I don't want to wait. oh, he just started this behavior about 4 months ago.  Any ideas, as well as how does that prong collar work?  What makes the dog listen so well when it is on?  Its like a total transformation!

    Thanks 
Gail

Accepted Answer

I would recommend the 4 hour DVD on Basic Dog Obedience

You will probably find that you have not had the full picture on the training steps for training your dog. A dog must go through training steps before it can be considered fully trained.

When you read the description of the DVD on the web site you will find out why we are not fans of taking an untrained dog to obedience classes. No professional dog trainer would ever take his dog to an obedience class with 15 or 20 untrained dogs and try and train it there. Dogs cannot learn when faced with this kind of distraction.

If you read the testimonials on the DVD you will see that our customers feel the same way.

I also recommend that you read the recently written article titled THE THEORY OF CORRECTIONS IN DOG TRAINING.

While obedience training is not the solution to all behavioral issue it most definitely is part of the solution for every single behavioral problem.

I believe that this recently finished DVD could really help you. It’s titled DEALING WITH DOMINANT AND AGGRESSIVE DOGS and was a 5 year project.

This DVD is 3 ½ hours long. You can go to the web page and read the outline of what’s included on the video. My DVD's are not meant to be watched one time. The fact is anyone who needs this information needs to watch it many many times because every time they watch it they will pick up new ideas.

The prong works by pinching the skin around the neck, much like a mother dog does to her pups when correcting them. This makes sense to most dogs and they really respect the collar.