New to this forum, but hope that someone can help. I am not a dog trainer, but currently handle a police belg mal (as an officer). The question isn't about him however. I have an 18 month old pit bull that I am (trying) to obedience train. She is very open to all my commands and is not at all challenging me. My problem is that she pulls relentlessly on the choke chain (even with corrections of being flipped), so I moved to a prong. I gave her one good MODERATE correction the other day, and she has since shut down completely. Now, I am used to the Mal, but I didn't give her THAT hard of a correction, but she just stays at my side. She doesn't growl, or urinate, or is too fearful,and she is still friendly and happy but she just won't move! When the prong comes off, she is a happy pup again and runs around.
My question is this: What is the BEST way to get her online again? She is not fearful, does not urinate out of submission, and listens MOST of the time to verbal commands--but I want ALL of the time. Any suggestions. So far, she is a wonderful, socialized with people and animals, non aggressive 18 month old.

not really enough information to give you a good answer, but......sometimes (not always) when a dog shuts down that way, it is out of confusion. being afraid of doing the wrong thing, they do nothing at all. a correction is just that. correction indicates that the dog is clear about what he should or should not be doing. if he is not clear a bunch of things could happen: shutdown like what you experienced, trial and error which only adds more confusion, or aggression toward the handler because he doesn't understand what he did wrong.

The good thing about useing a prong to correct a dog from pulling is that you usually don't have to do anything but let them pull....most of the time it doesn't take them long to realize that it is more comfortable to not pull, unless you have a really hard dog. My guess is that she isn't.

Maybe try letting your dog wear the prong without a leash attached while the two of you are just hanging out together. Play with her and feed her treats. No more corrections with it though til she is happy while wearing it. As I'm sure you already know don't leave it on her when you are not with her.

My dog did the same thing, shut down after realizing it hurt when he did the wrong thing and I gave like level 1 corrections. He stopped pulling and definetly stopped jumping on people too. I took the prong off and just let him wear what he had before and the behavior was fixed and he wasn't shut down anymore. Try using choke chain again, if she pulls again go back to prong. My guess is same as my dog, it hurt him and he was afraid to mess up again.

I agree with Debbie here - it sounds like the dog is associating the equipment with the correction rather than the circumstance.

Let the dog wear the prong off leash and get it de-sesitized to just having the equipment on. I would be careful with excessive compensation with the treats - just act as you normally would around the animal with the collar on, the idea is to make the equipment as common as every other daily experience.

After a few days or a week of this you can try and go back to the leash with the prong without giving any taps for correction - once the dog gets to the end of the leash the prongs will do enough. You may have to offer some encouragement when you get back on leash with the prong for the first time - nothing wrong with an extra treat or toy distraction there to help the animal along in those initial few minutes back on the prong and leash.

Joel