I've read much of the material on prong collars here on leerburg.com. It seems like Ed recommends them fairly often to pet owners. I'd like to know what the general guidelines are for when it's appropriate to use them.

• What age is appropriate?
  
• What temperaments are good with prong collars and which aren't?
  
• Are they strictly for learning to walk nicely, or for other situations too?
  
• How many of you have used prong collars on puppies and what age?
  

I know Ed recommends prong collars to puppies age 4 - 6 months. So far, I've just used a flat buckle collar. It seems like some of the advice I got here in the forum is to let her (as a puppy) walk pretty much on her own, not to give corrections, not to pull on her leash to try and "steer her", and to pretty much just take it patiently as it comes.

I have a neighbor who trainer her puppy with a prong collar. I was amazed at how quickly the dog learned to walk nicely beside her. Frankly, I'm a little jealous seeing her walk her dog and how nicely her dog behaves. I don't want to switch to a prong collar just to satisfy my own vanity of walking with such a well trained dog. Is it somehow "better" for me to take the longer route of training for walks with a flat collar? It seems like training faster with a prong collar would put less overall corrections on the dog.

Here's Ed's quote, "The first people I usually recommend for the prong collars have 3 to 4 month old pups that pull them down the street when they take them for a walk." Suzzie isn't exactly pulling me down the street, but she's not walking next to me either. Less than 15% of the walk is with her next to me. Even when she's walking nicely (not pulling) she's usually a couple of feet in front of me.

Here's a couple of other questions. Why do I want a prong collar that will last 20 years? Is the assumption I'll be training more than one dog with it? Is a prong collar something I'll need to use throughout Suzzie's life or typically only for a few months while I leash train her?

Also, should I consider a fur saver collar given the length of her hair? Will the prong collar typically tear up her fur around her head?

PS: Wouldn't it be great if I thought through my post instead of posting follow-up questions again and again?

I think this link http://www.cobankopegi.com/prong.html will answer most of your questions.

What sort of training/work have you done with Suzzie to address the pulling?

I'm not against prongs, I use one on Teagan, but - I would try some other things before I tried the prong.

Suzzie pulls....as a puppy, I let Neb explore as much as he wanted. When I decided it was time to work on pulling - he knew 'au pied' already, but for our walks I wanted something less formal. I used a toy (fleece tug) to keep him on loose lead and after a while, loose lead walking became habit. Some people use treats to reinforce this, some people switch direction when their dog starts pulling - in my opinion, there are things to try before you go to a prong.

And not b/c prongs are bad - but b/c you're teaching Suzzie to respect the collar, not really to learn how to walk loose-lead. It's sort of like a band-aid for a training gap.

eta: if you train her with marker training or some other positive method, yup, it might take longer, but I wouldn't assume it will mean more corrections. You can train this without corrections, or without physical corrections. IMO.

Another method you may want to try to correct the pulling problem is the following....

When you have your dog on a walk and he pulls try stopping and then turning around and walking the other way. They pull because it is self-fulfilling - makes the feel good. Remember, dogs do things because they feel good.

The very first few times you take your dog for a walk you may not get very far using this method - but that's not the point here. It's to have the dog pay attention to you for its clues as to where and how it should walk.

Try this for a while and see if it helps. If not, then try the prong. I'm not against using a prong as it is an excellent tool. But I would try something else in this situation before just resorting to a prong.

My 2cents...

I started using a prong for walking at about 5 months; it does a great job to eliminate pulling, but like Jennifer said, it is just a bandaid.

My dog now weighs 90lbs, and I am not physically strong enough to feel confident walking without a prong. (but I do work on loose leash walking with positive reinforcement whenever she gives me loose leash w/ eye contact)

Your dog pulls because she gets what she wants (forward motion) when she pulls.

If you can work on this independently of walking for exercise, you may have better results.

Start in an area that she is familiar with, and try to keep the distractions to a minimum. When she is by your side and the leash is loose, mark and reward with a really good food reward.
When she pulls ahead, immediately stop any forward motion. And wait for her to come back to you (without any prompting on your part), mark and reward for looking at you and continue on your walk. As soon as she pulls ahead again, stop and wait. Eventually she will figure out that pulling=no forward motion.

This is a slow process, but she's only had a month or so (not years)of getting rewarded for pulling on the leash. You may have good success with it, if you are patient enough not to reward her for pulling...

So what I hear is that you can teach good leash manners without a prong collar and that is better because the dog is learning to learn from you and respect your wishes rather than learning to respect the collar.

If you'll read my other posts, you can probably tell that I'm struggling with patience. I want a dog that walks nicely sooner rather than later. I know that's my motivation for wanting to use a prong collar. I also think it's probably not a good enough reason to use one.

Here's what I think may be legitimate reasons to use one. First, it's tedious for me to walk her for exercise (which she needs more than a little) while also trying to teach her not to pull on the leash. I feel like when I walk her for exercise and she pulls I'm torn between "correcting" the behavior with the various methods mentioned above and actually getting the walk in where she comes home physically tired and ready to be calm at home for a while. When I let her pull I feel like I'm "undoing" my training that I do with her. When I focus on her leash manners we don't get much exercise in.

Second, I would like to enjoy walks with family members (and our other dog). Since it's (late) Spring and almost Summer, we like to walk as a family. I tried walking with my wife and older dog just the other day. It was a disaster. My Suzzie was so distracted by the other dog I ended up walking a different way from my wife; but she was still pulling like mad to get back to our other dog. I'd like my son to be able to walk with me as well. I feel like if I spend a little time with the prong collar then we'll be able to enjoy these family walks together.

Third, like much of the training methods I learn here, my wife is disagreeing with me. She wants me to get through this puppy training faster. She tolerates me doing what I think is best; but she gets frustrated. She wants me to the point where I'm not so focused on the dog and can delegate some of the responsibility to the kids or herself. Of course, her lack of understanding of the time needed makes me less want to delegate responsibilities to her.

I feel like at my current rate of progress it will be three or four more months before she's able to walk with me and my family the way I'd like. Over the course of 10 - 15 years that's not much time. With my life in the here and now it seems like a very long time. All that to say, I agree that I should continue working on leash training with positive methods. I don't want a prong collar to be a fact of our walks. I'm just looking for some type of compromise.

How much time do you spend each day/week working on positive methods to teach loose-lead walking?

What method exactly are you using? How long have you been using it (consistency)?

Puppies are trying to the patience at times. It's part of having a puppy.

I'm just trying to get a feel for what you've been doing - you mention using positive methods, but what are they, for how long, how have you been using them and/or training loose-lead walking?

All this take time. You have to have patience and do not rush the process. The more you rush, the more you and the dog will miss, the less the dog will have things truly ingrained and the more frustration you'll face later because of hasty foundational training.

I have had our new pup for about 3 months now and he still tries to pull on the leash - no where near as badly as it was 3 months ago but he still tries. Now he's more walking in front of me with a loose leash. I still don't like that but we are working on it.

I still can not walk both my dogs at the same time as the pup just gets too distracted.

Puppies are puppies and they are like small children - their attention span is limited and they just want to play and have things their way. They are what they are.

Don't rush the puppy stage - rather enjoy it - you'll wish you had it back later!

Adolescence and adulthood all bring their own sets of issues to deal with.

Dogs are not robots, they need patience, training, rules, exercise (lots of physical and mental stimulation), a good diet, and love to thrive.

Give your pup what it needs the most, a firm and understanding pack leader that it can look up to and learn from. Do that, and you'll have a dog that follows and hangs on every word you say.

Best of luck.

Edited by Peter Marek (05/11/2009 11:04 AM)
Edit reason: corrected typos