Is there any such thing as a dog who shouldn't use a prong collar for training (due to his personality etc)? If so, could you explain why?

The trainer at a local Sch club told me that Mal's are very masochistic so alotta the time using a prong collar only encourages them, where a GSD would submit from it. I don't know how true this is though. I've never owned a Mal <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> But after seeing her Mal I did agree with the "Mal's are GSD's on crack" statement, lol.

Of course, Ed has an article about soft and hard dogs. Maggie was a hard dog and a prong was needed to correct some potentualy dangerous problems. Max would fold like a house of cards with harsh language. A flat or a pinch collar at the most for him.

Is there such a thing as a medium dog? There's times where my dog will take all the correction in the world because he wants to sniff whatever it is that he sniffs in the grass, he'll pull against a prong collar on the live ring to continue sniffing what he wants to sniff.... but other times, a very minor e-collar correction, or even a (not even harsh) "no" will change his behavior instantly. But when I used a choker on him before switching to a prong, I could tell he was "mad" at me because of the corrections he was giving himself from pulling till he choked himself. I have him on a harness and e-collar now and he does wonderfully.

Does Ed have any articles on training soft dogs?

With a medium to hard dog that is mostly ignoring your corrections I have found that one good correction that makes them think the wrath of God has come upon them is better than a thousand little nagging corrections. I use the rule of "3"....the third time I have to make a correction for the same behavior it isn't going to be good! Especially, if the behavior is something that is dangerous for me, them or others.

If the correction you are giving doesn't cause your dog to really go into a submissive mode with at least the ears back, tail between the legs, crouching on the ground with a good yelp, then the correction probably wasn't harsh enough to make a difference. You have to test the waters to find out what level of correction works for your dog.

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If the correction you are giving doesn't cause your dog to really go into a submissive mode with at least the ears back, tail between the legs, crouching on the ground with a good yelp, then the correction probably wasn't harsh enough to make a difference. You have to test the waters to find out what level of correction works for your dog.

This type of reaction is not necessary or warranted for every behavior that is being corrected for, BTW. If you are correcting for, say, not sitting when told, you don't need to correct so hard as to cause the dog to roll over on his back and wet himself. You just need to correct hard enough so that he obeys the command. If you are correcting for aggression, then what Debbie has said IS the reaction you want to get. When I was working with my dog and her aggression/dominance towards other dogs, it was the ONLY time I EVER corrected her hard enough to elicit a response like what Debbie described. For 'everyday corrections,' however, this level of force is not necessary or desirable.

Hello????
Is anyone auctually reading my original question?
Thanks

At 5 months old me and a friend of mine worked with a local trainer that came highly reccomended to us.

1. He said to use a choker, and "a puppy started on a choker should never need to go to a prong".

2. "Never train with treats, ween your dog off treats if he's already trained that way or he won't listen to you unless you have a treat in your hand, a monkey could train a dog with treats".

3. He skipped the "learning" and went straight to "correct for disobedience" on my 5 month old pup.

Personally...

1. I still used treats, but I used them less because I was told not to use them at all.

2. After a few months of my dog not responding to a choker when teaching him to not pull and "heel", I stopped using it because it was ruining my relationship with my puppy. He was very clearly mad at me after using it on walks, wouldn't lay down at my feet, walked away from me when I laid down next to him on the ground etc.

3. Although he gave me alot of insight into training and got me started on the correct path... I totally wish I could do it over again. I often feel like I screwed up the puppyhood experience by being too tough on my pup, even though I seem to only be thinking about the few negative moments opposed to all the positive ones, I keep trying to remind myself of all the happy experiences I gave my pup.

At 7.5 months (2.5 months after starting him on the choker) I stopped using it and decided to let my puppy be a puppy. Then I started using hotdogs in training, like my breeder had told me to do in the first place. I spent 3 or 4 months doing purely positive training with him, making training sessions as fun and exciting as possible for my dog, working off the "Building drive & focus" dvd's methods to build up my dog's drive and training obedience thru drive by playing tug.

At 1 year old I bought a prong collar, it worked pretty well but wasn't perfect. A few weeks after switching to a prong collar, I went out and bought an e-collar because it was driving me absolutely insane that my dog, the lil ****head that he is, would run away, stand 30ft away from me n ignore me completely when off-leash. He wanted to run around in the grass n play, I wanted to go to bed... the e-collar fixed this in 10 minutes, once he knew he wasn't immune to correction at 30ft away or without a leash attached to him, training got alot better. Side effects of teaching him off-leash "come" was that he finally caught onto the whole "Fetch" concept, and he finally started listening to "heel" (previously the only way to stop him pulling on the leash was to let him drag the leash then step on it when he walked ahead of me, holding the leash would make him pull).

So now I use low-level stim, lotsa hotdogs, tugs, and have a dog that I can trust to walk out and get the mail with me without having to worry about him not coming back inside with me. A dog I can take into the back yard and play fetch with and has alot of drive. A dog that I can take out on a 20ft Flexi-lead to let him sniff around, but at the same time have him heel next to me perfectly when walking thru a crowd. Training with a new method and adapting it to what my dog was telling me with his body language made a world of difference.

I've discovered what works best for my dog, I've made my mistakes and hope it didn't have any long term effects on my dog. Our relationship is perfect, he's as happy as he could be, he has excellent drive and his obedience makes me a much more relaxed handler, although I still get frustrated when he makes me walk in the rain then won't poop <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

This was my dog training experience, I still haven't been able to work out if he's a soft or a hard dog, I'm assuming soft-medium depending on his determination to sniff the grass. Unless I'm misunderstanding something, the only "trick" to training a soft dog is to read your dog and figure out what he's responding to the best. Every dog is different, and they do a better job at telling us how they feel than I gave them credit for.

thanks Mike