My pup is getting to the age where I need to start doing some corrections. Correcting with just a lease on an agitation collar is not possible, he ignores it. A friend of mine brought his prong collar over yesterday, and he was like a brand new dog. We trained Rommel to walk nicely on the leash, and took care of his jumping problem by just stepping on the end of a short lead attached to the prong collar. It appears to me that the prong collar is not only effective because of the actual mechanism behind how it works, but also because you can give the dog a "direction" when using it. For example, when he jumps, the stepped-on short lead gives him a correction AND pulls him back down.

With an e-collar, he still gets the correction. However, he doesn't get that sense of direction telling him what he should be doing. Obviously you only want to correct for behavior the dog knows is bad, or for disobedience. But it seems to me that both the prong collar and the e-collar have their uses.

I need an e-collar. His recall is fine when he's within 40-50 feet of me. But anything farther than that, and he will just look at me and ignore me. And there are a couple of other issues like scratching at the garage door that I want to take care of.

So my question is, do I need to get both the prong and the e-collar? Or, would getting just the e-collar be sufficient?

John,
Your dog is now what, 5 or 6 months old?
And sorry I forget, you're training for.......?


If my dog isn't learning, I'm doing something wrong.
Randy

 Quote:

My pup is getting to the age where I need to start doing some corrections.

How do you figure that? How old is he? What have you done with him training-wise that makes you feel he understands what you are asking of him well enough to correct him when he doesn't obey?

 Quote: John Stopps

My pup is getting to the age where I need to start doing some corrections.

Just want to mention that reaching a certain age is not one of the criteria, for me.

I do correct when necessary.

But I also get a strong feeling of accomplishment when my foundation work is so thorough that corrections are rarely needed.

I love it when I call the dog and the dog's head goes up and he looks around for me and comes galloping. I love it when the recall means good stuff to the dog.

I work hard to proof the commands first in different venues and then in varied circumstances, with gradually increasing distractions.

 Quote: Mike J Schoonbrood

 Quote:

My pup is getting to the age where I need to start doing some corrections.

How do you figure that? How old is he? What have you done with him training-wise that makes you feel he understands what you are asking of him well enough to correct him when he doesn't obey?

He's about 5 months now. I work from home, and every time I interact with him, it involves treats and some training. I got him at 8 weeks, and he probably gets a total of 1-2 hours (in short sessions) of training a day using motivation with treats or toys. He's actually really good, as long as there are no distractions. As soon as there is a distraction, he is more interested in that than obeying. I can put him in a down stay, and he'll sit there for 20 minutes until I tell him otherwise. He drops like a rock when I give him the down command, but if there is a distraction he's reluctant to drop or he just looks at me and tries to wander off. He KNOWS the commands I've taught him so far, but under certain circumstances he will look at me, and then just disobey.

It sounds like 1) you may be pushing the training sessions slightly past your dogs endurance. You should always end the session while the dog is still excited, and on a positive note.
If you are waiting until the dog is getting bored and loosing focus, you've gone too long.

You may be expecting too much from your pup.

Also, the second you notice your dog's attention begin to wander, you need to issue a good firm correction.

You don't want to start pulling out the "big guns" this early in the game, for avoidable situations- you're leaving yourself short-handed in the future.

Set the dog up for success. As you start incorporating distraction into training sessions, keep the sessions extremely short. The first time your dog obeys a command under distraction, reward the crap out of the dog, and end the session, RIGHT THERE. It doesn't matter if it was only a 5 minute session- with training, quality is definitely more important than quantity.

The next time around, try to extend the duration only a few minutes over the last session, and so forth, until your dog can consistantly perform under distraction. THEN you can shift your focus to correction. Right now, your puppy is still learning HOW to ignore distraction. It takes practice, and you can't just jump in head first with the dog. Your job is to ALWAYS set your pup up for success. Expecting him to perform for 20+ minutes, under distraction, is asking too much.

At 5 months old I wouldn't be worrying about this stuff. Focus on laying down a strong foundation. Attention span at that age is very short still, dogs will get easily distracted and are still very goofy and immature.

My own dogs are coming up to 16 months old and they are still incredibly immature that I don't correct them yet. I am getting good results with motivational training, and it only gets better with age. They don't know what a prong looks like. Not to say you should wait till the dog is 16 months old, just giving an example of how un-rushed you can be when it comes to these things. It's more important to lay down a strong foundation and wait for the dog to get older, than to start correcting too soon and ruining the enjoyment the dog has of listening to you. If I can tell my dog is going to ignore me, I don't give him the command. And yes, I can tell when my dog is going to ignore me I wait for that split second opening when I know I can get their attention before giving them a command so that they practice success all the time.

The fact your pup (a very very young pup) is ignoring you under distraction means 2 things:

1) He is not ready for distractions of that level.

2) You are letting him develop the habit of ignoring you.

Keep at the training, keep the sessions short, always end on a high note, always end when the dog wants more, always end with success. Never give a command if you can tell the dog is going to ignore you. If you recall the dog and he ignores you, be sure you have a line on him so you can reel him in like a fish. Never correct on the recall, the happier the dog is to come to you the better the results will be in the long term.

At around 10 months old you will start to see a big change in the pups attention span and level of understanding toward what you want from him. If you do everything right up to the 10-12 month point then you will likely not need to give many corrections at all. Sometimes a dog does need that kick in the butt to say "hey you, you really do need to listen," but not at 5 months old.

 Quote: mike j schoonbrood

Keep at the training, keep the sessions short, always end on a high note, always end when the dog wants more, always end with success. Never give a command if you can tell the dog is going to ignore you.

As Mike and Alyssa say, these are keys to good foundation.

I am almost always training green or badly-trained adults, but these "rules" apply there too.

Ob training can (and should, IMO) be fun for everyone involved. Part of this for me is never doing a session when I'm crabby or rushed, and never extending it with frustration on either the dog's part or my own. If something is going badly and I am getting frustrated, I switch to a command that I know s/he will perform, mark it and reward, and quit that session.

P.S. The recall can be reinforced all day, BTW. Dinner? Recall. Walk? Recall. Car ride? Recall. Every good thing in the dog's day starts with the recall.

The recall is his favorite sound: that's my goal.

First let me say I don't know enough about dog training to even stand next to the advisors you have already heard from but I can share with you my experience with both collars. It might give you some further insight into the two training tools.

My dog (PB) had a severe issue with DA. The first source was my lack of leadership, once I got that figured out I had her nature to deal with. I am an amature body builder and had injured my distal tendon so when we progressed to the prong collar in her training I simply could not give consistent hard corrections with it. My girl is also a very hard dog with corrections, you can pretty much hit with all ya got and she hits the ground with as much unwanted drive as she had before the correction. Now granted it appears I always let her get into drive before I responded with the correction and then too late. As a result of a disaster with a defective prong, my hand was injured which pretty much made the use of it as an effective training tool an impossibility. Soooooo I moved onto the e-collar. Well I found you can give a consistent, immediate correction with this tool that she ABSOLUTELY respected. In hine sight the prong probably increased her drive intead of subdued it. I am proud to say I am the e-collar now adays, but I never leave home with out it. My disaster with the prong resulted because I did not have a back up collar on with it, now that I am the e-collar, the device IS my back up and I will never again take her out without a back up!

Not sure this is of any use, but it is my experience with the device, it was the LAST thing I resorted to for controlling her DA.

I am sure she will always harbor DA, I believe it is her nature, but the e-collar enabled me to correct her every time, the same level very quickly. I guess I should point out, she knew her behavior was not appropriate as we had spent a good deal of time with OB and still do today...she loves it! Good luck!