I hope this question is not too dumb. My dog hates the prong collar. I don't blame him. I also never had it fitted correctly so it laid low on his neck, and amazingly through all the classes no one ever corrected it. before I found this site, we started out at puppy classes which were way too much stimulation for him. 4 classes later we had graduated to the prong because he was getting bigger but I was not. I was trying to be as positive as possible, but he was getting jerked and pulled around a lot. He will lay his ears back immediately if I put that collar on him. Right now i still use it for trips where there are high levels of stimuli.

At one year old I found this site, bought a bunch of the videos, started reading, and we changed direction. I spent the winter backing up and building relationship with him. He walked almost totally off leash on our property and we engaged. Here we are in spring, although it feels like summer already, and we have started "formal" training again.

After a few emails with Ed and Cindy, and watching a lot of video, I have decided to use the remote collar as much as I can rather than the prong. Even though we spent the better part of 6 months not ever turning it on, I am pretty sure he knows where the stim comes from. I have decided to do "voice command" "page" "stim" with the hopes that we will graduate down to page only and then to voice only.

So we went back to leash walking. We had been leash walking for the last couple months on our property, little distraction, no problems. Today we started with the remote trainer to help me with him getting to the end of the leash and putting pressure on it, more often lagging behind to sniff, pee, etc. And we will work up to ditractions. It is harder than it looks with getting timing right, but we are working on it.

we went for a short walk and all was well, mostly him loosening the leash on voice command only, a few pages, a couple stims on 24(that seems to be his number). he found an interesting pee spot and would not continue on. I stinned at 24, then moved it up maybe 10 numbers at a time until we got in the nineties. He started to react by head shaking but kept sniffing. AT 105, he broke away from the pee and followed me and I praised him a lot. And continued to set him up with being praised for a while.

I know my mistake here was to repeat the command before each stim. I realized it afterwards.

After the pee spot, he laid his ears back, and it wasn't until we were back in our yard about 10 minutes or so later that he put them forward again. Although he seemed to enjoy the rest of the walk the same, walking along, behaving pretty well, and me allowing him to go off the side of the road occassionally to sniff.

Is this a concern. I don't know how to read the ears so well, except I know if he is upset he will lay them back. ALthough, I also see him with them laid back all on his own sometimes. This collar is really the way I want to go, he doesn't seem to mind it like the prong, and it is way easier on me being almost the same size as he is. But I want to be able to keep in touch with where he is at mentally while using it, or anytime for that matter. Any input here is appreciated. Thanks.

Laying their ears back is usually a sign of submission. It would seem like sniffing is a 'minor' distration for that high of a stim level to need to be used.

Yes, I would too. It is the first interesting thing we came too. Any other thing he sniffed he responded to a voice or page. I don't want to even cosider stimming that high, that is why we are starting with low level distrations, and I would not have thought pee to be that interesting.

My dogs love their prong collars! To them putting on the prongs means that they are going to go out & have some fun at the field or the beach and have a run or whatever. Same with their e-collars(I have them on for backup only & rarely use them). Absolutley NO NEGITIVE feelings about collars here.

Maybe it is something that you did with the collar..corrections, whatever that has caused the dog to develop an issue with the collar. I don't know.

I am sure it was the way we used the collar to start with. He was in classes where he should not have been with way too much distraction, with an improperly fitted collar, and way too much correction. Can you say "ignorant owner"? With the remote collar, we are starting with a clean slate with a lot more direction and help through the videos, emails and this board. That is why you will see seemingly simple questions here from me. I want to make sure we don't make the mistakes we have made in the beginning.

Julie,

Have you ever considered using Marker Training with this dog to keep things on a very positive level prior to needing corrections for behaviors he is still learning?

It almost seems we've gone for overcorrecting with the prong to overcorrecting with the ecollar...

 Quote: Barbara Schuler

Have you ever considered using Marker Training with this dog to keep things on a very positive level prior to needing corrections for behaviors he is still learning?

!!

Julie I am working with a dog I have now that shuts down with collar, training, voice. By shut down I am seeing ears flat to head, smelling this and that, reluctant eye contact, just miserable for us both. To be honest, his misery was certainly affecting how I was interacting with him and not in a good way. We have been using marker training as Barabara referenced and each day he is bringing more energy, is more willing to try. Marker training removed the pressure from us both and now we just have fun. It is a slow process but so rewarding!

(by slow I am referring to the un-doing of misery, marker training actually quicker)

Everyone's wrong. The problem? Your dog is a cat. That's all.

I joke. :p

My dog pins his ears back when he says hi. Other than that, he looks like a dingbat. Also, I am of no use to your issue. All I know is that what they're all saying about marker training is true. It works pretty good for my dog too.

we do marker training, a lot of it, and it is working well and we enjoy it. After we started using it, it just seems to work naturally with every kind of trianing that we are doing, and day to day life with him.

We did not go from prong to remote. We spent months and months in between, although there were a few instances that I needed the extra control with the prong when we went into unfamiliar places. He weighs exactly 20 pounds less than me,and has dislocated two of my ribs hitting the end of a leash when I was not paying attention. There WILL be a collar on him that allows me to control him. It is dangerous for us both to not have that control.

We have spent probably two months on a regular collar just reinforcing all the commands associated with walking on a leash, since we did not do a lot of leash walking this winter when he was off leash most of the time, so there is no doubt in my mind that he KNOWS what he should do, he just doesn't always feel like he needs to do it. I am a big food reward person too, and our walks are big on being rewarded for every right thing in some form or fashion.

He DOES NOT get a correction of any kind for a command that I am not certain he knows.

He lays his ears back at different times too, like when greeting like the last poster said, and he did not seem to not enjoy the rest of the walk, nor to not want to interact with me at all. This was really a question about reading the ear language. I'm sorry if I posted it in a way to seem like I was asking about the use of the collar. I actually had emailed directly with Leerburg about that last Fall before purchasing the collar. I am confident that I am adding the collar in at the right time. I guess what I need is more information on how to read his body language. Thanks all!

This post wasn't meant to sound smart, sorry if it does. I just didn't want to get back to the subject of whether the remote collar should be used or not, and have the body language question get lost.