I actually have had some middle age woman with no fashion sense scurry towards me yelling at a loud voice that I was abusing my dog ( in a large, pretty much empty parking lot that I sometimes train in for distraction. I'm parked at the very end and I'm at least 40 meters from the nearest parked car. How this kook saw that my dog had a prong collar on mystified me ) She was moving so fast and weirdly towards me that I quietly gave Fetz a watch command that she couldn't hear ( but he could <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" /> ) and he put on his usually "bark and hold from Hell" towards here. She stopped dead if her tracks and I yelled to her ( I had to yell to be heard over Fetz's snarling ) "Lady, please take him here and show me the right way to do it" - I extended my leash hand towards her and Fetz advanced the distance. Oddly, she didn't take me up on my offer. I them gave him a fuss command and heeled him nicely off the lot, stopping to turn around and flip the woman off.

Sorry, I'm not polite to idiots.

I may get bashed for this, but IMHO, at least give it a try to "educate" if possible some of the people that do this. I've had prongs on and had the same reactions, but how do people ever have "enlightenment" if you don't at least try? I know it's aggravating, but people fear things they don't understand. The telephone and internet, when they first came out, most people wanted nothing to do with them. I know, I work with them, waste of time, blah blah. Education has helped overcome that, and what a great thing it is.

True, there are people you just need to hand "Here's your sign" to. However, it's difficult for me to believe that NOBODY can learn soemthing from a possibly kind word, or a minute of your time.

My opinion only. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

When I'm in the mood, which is not all the time, and someone asks about the Ecollar, and they're polite in their question I'll take it off and have them feel the stim. Their most common response is "Is that all it is?" If they have children with them, they always want to feel it too. They giggle!

But if I get the accusatory idiocy from some self righteous moron; I'm usually on the same page as Will.

Thats hilarious Will! Ill have to remember that one if Im ever in that situation. Haa!

Quote from Robert VanCamp:
"I find that raising my middle finger, and only my middle finger, while gesturing vehemently in the offended's direction (with a nice smile on my face) usually conveys the exact message I'm trying to get across."

Hey Robert, if your actual smile looks anything like your avatar this is bound to be very effective <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Wow <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> you guys live near some nosey people! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

When people do see me make a correction on one of my dogs (and usually the correction is so fast that they don't register it), they generally ask all sorts of questions about how they can do that with their dog, who has been through many classes and is still unreliable, or pulls, or whatever.

Perhaps because I am a small, physically unintiminating woman is the reason that they don't see the prong and correction as abuse.

With one of my dogs, who had real aggression problems, I did the hardcore corrections away from people, so my corrections around people would not have to be harsh. My voice became both a negative and positive reinforcer, and she lived for one, but dreaded the other!

But I am with Mike, when I am training, I am so focused on my dog, that people talking to me are just a new distraction, and I don't see any dirty looks. Most people on the street in my town are on my side, and dislike ill behaved dogs.

I honestly have not had any dirty looks from people, if anything they come over and start bugging the hell out of me by asking questions. I've heard and still occassionally hear several times about my male american showline gsd and how "something's wrong with his legs" to which I ALWAYS respond "there's nothing wrong with his legs but there's gonna be something wrong with your face if you don't get outta mine's." I'm no little guy so the always walk away quite quickly <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Depending on who you ask, I'm either "the person with the really good dog" or "that awful woman who beats her dog!"
LOL but the rudest look coupled with "WHAT?!" shuts them up almost every time. Once I did have to suggest that the person go and get their own dog, though. Imbeciles.

I think the general public believes that a dog gets trained over the weekend and when they see you practice in public they either think you are showing off or your dog isn't really trained because "trained dogs just behave all the time." I don't bother even explaining the truth to the closed minded people who make comments like those to your girlfriend. I'm kinda pround of the ugly e-collar looks I get- it identifies 'those type of people' & keeps them away. If they wanted to make an effort to understand, they can do their own research, yet it seems like there mind is already made up. I wish I could be more kind and outreaching to the misinformed public, but over time, we all lose our patience. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> I have my nice days though. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />