AHAHAHAHAH!!! Oh, jeez, stop I'm laughing so hard i can't breathe! Mike, you are so funny.

 Quote: Mike J Schoonbrood

 Quote: Benjamin Colbert

DD collar because I find something intimately wrong with restricting an animals air supply as a punishment.

So, go find someone with a really dominant handler aggressive dog, take the leash, pop the prong collar and then offer the dog a cookie when he comes up the leash. Then while he's chomping down on your hand, hit that e-collar remote and you will probably start to feel even more pain in your hand as the dog directs his pissed offness into his bite. No good? OK have your buddy correct the snot out of him with a prong collar! Whats that? He's not letting go? He's growling and shaking his head harder you say?

Well MAYBE IF HE COULDNT BREATHE HE MIGHT LET GO!

Then go call a hand surgeon and see if they can make your hand usable again. Do you have good medical???

What a picture that brings up! Tragic in real life but so funny in make-believe.
ROFLMAO. But wait, we aren't supposed to be having fun. Dang.

I know I'm new to this, but from what I can gather Ben I think you may have misunderstood the idea behind the DD collar.

From my understanding, it is for Dominant and Aggressive dogs. Those when prong/e-collars just aren't enough (other than as back-up to the prong).

Dogs see situations in black and white. Prongs and e-collars are for corrections, but these won't stop a dom/agg dog that is in 'I'm gonna kill it' mode. All the 'popping' in the world won't help then. The only thing that will do the job then is a technique that will stop the dog in its tracks.

Now, you can try to pin the dog, 'alpha roll' it (maybe not) or anything else, but make sure your phone has big buttons so you can dial 911 with your butt!

Prongs and e-collars can aggravate the dog more - not a good idea in that situation. A DD collar basically removes the air flow and takes the fight out of the dog. It's not an ordinary correction....

I don't think that your clients would have a dog that requires that level if it's just basic obedience - and if they did you'd know about it by their bandages!

If I'm way off I'm sure people will 'correct' me, but I think that's basically it.

HTH
Rob

 Quote: David Eagle

Ahh. A DD collar, as you know, is meant to be on a dominant, handler aggressive dog, any time that dog is being handled, or may need to be corrected for dominance aggression. You wouldn't use a DD collar to correct fear aggression, of course not. .

I use the DD collar for fear aggression which is the result of poor pack leadership. It is the first step to regaining the owner as the leader and protector. Straight fear aggression..no

 Quote: Rob Bruce

Now, you can try to pin the dog, 'alpha roll' it (maybe not) or anything else, but make sure your phone has big buttons so you can dial 911 with your butt!

AHAHA...I resemble that comment ....only I did not need to call 911 because it worked.
DD collars for me.....way better than rolling around on the ground trying to wrestle something that resembles a greased pig with a lot more teeth.

It is much better than ultimately making a situation worse with tools that could possibly piss the dog off more, OR worse, being stuck in the middle of a field with NO tools at all.
Been there, done that, NOT EVER going to happen again......

Bottom line is Mike is right, and until you own, or work with on a daily basis, a truly dominant dog you really can't understand it. You can sissy foot around all you want, and talk about sweet little positive methods to control agression. However, people with real serious dogs know better than this, and the inexperience is obvious.

Mike, you are such a stinker

Benjamin, all teasing aside, I too was incredulous when I first read that Frawley will hang a dog by a tree when handler/dog aggressive...then I got Levi.

Levi is extremely dog aggressive. The first time that he was allowed to watch other dogs working competitive Schutzhund from the sidelines was like watching a dog become possessed. That time I did have a choke on him (havent been able to get the dd collar as yet but I will be purchasing it asap) fortunately I am educated enough not to yank on the collar. Anyhow, my trainer who was from Austria and trained for 25 yrs or so, immediately told me to lift him up right close to my hip, literally lifting his feet off the ground. Only took two times and the dog layed down and took a nap whilst all the other dogs were working nearby. The message is clear and quick.

Let me give you another example. I took him to Petsmart one day with the prong collar on. Another big dog was walking towards us and wouldn't you know he was behaving very challenging towards Levi, it was all I could do to hold Levi back and I can tell you right now that the prong collar pissed him off even more than before! It appeared that in his mind the other dog was causing the pinch and his aggression increased two fold over what had happened the first time. No, I dont want to have a prong on my dog w/o a dominant dog collar or a choke. As soon as $$ allows I will be purchasing one.

I realize it's hard to readjust one's way of thinking when one hasn't been exposed to something but I trust the voices of experience on this forum. I also believe that SOMETIMES positive reinforcement just isn't what the doctor ordered. On occasion, dominance IS aggression. Hope this helped put it into better perspective for you.

 Quote: Benjamin Colbert

Rick, effective punishment should diminish the action being corrected(i.e. a leash correction with a prong on a dog who has disobeyed a command is punishment).

Sure that's fine. I think that you have seen enough evidence that the DD collar diminishes the action being corrected.

 Quote: Benjamin Colbert

Susan, I don't have enough expertise with aggression to answer this completely but for a dog that shows aggression towards animals or people as a consistent behavior I would first try counter conditioning with positive reinforcement.

'Taint going to work. Have you ever seen the Dominant dogs DVD? One of the scenes is a high drive, handler agressive dog that redirects its agression toward Ed. A very scary situation, and this ain't no poodle or schnauzer.

Speaking of which, in the same DVD, Ed works with this family who has a toy poodle (I think) that is handler agressive. He uses the DD collar on that one, too. Lil' rascal, this one!

The point of the DD collar is to correct the dog's behavior, whilst simultaneously decreasing the dog's drive. I don't think you are going to find another training collar that is going to do that for you. E-collar stim, prong collar corrections--these all result in what Mike was displaying for you, increased agression.

Bottom line, DD collars are not something you want to break out, but the alternative of the dog being euthanized because of handler agression is far worse.

Agreeing with Robbin here and can understand Benjamin's reaction to taking a dog's air away and I may have said the same thing a couple of years ago but since then I thoroughly understand the need for such an approach.

Ben, if you consider that this form of sending a clear message to an aggressive dog could be what saves the life of the dog and is for the safety of humans or other dogs, it should make sense to you. It's worth it to the dog and to his handler to take these measures a few times. The alternative would be to put the dog to sleep since unchecked aggression will escalate. I don't believe there are other fail-safe methods of stopping true aggression in a dog.

The dominant dog collar doesn't cause pain if used correctly. By taking the dog's air away, it gets the dog to calm down, refocus, and realize aggression won't be tolerated. In fact, if you see true aggressive behavior in a dog towards its handler or other humans or dogs and want the most humane way of dealing with it, the DD collar fits that bill.

An aggressive dog is hard to stop otherwise - they get locked in and completely focused while in aggression and zeroed in on a target. They don't want food, they don't care about pleasing you, they don't want their toy - redirecting a dog while displaying aggression doesn't work. It needs to be stopped and stopped immediately, with total control by the handler. Thus the use for the DD collar.

 Quote:

An aggressive dog is hard to stop otherwise - they get locked in and completely focused while in aggression and zeroed in on a target. They don't want food, they don't care about pleasing you, they don't want their toy - redirecting a dog while displaying aggression doesn't work.

Very true; it's like a switch gets flipped and there's no off-button. The DD collar diffuses the issue quickly. If I hadn't witnessed so much completely over-the-top aggression for myself, I may have agreed that taking air away sounded extreme. Being at the other end of the leash though, experiencing danger in a very real sense, makes the DD collar a very practical tool that I'm grateful to have. Aggression met with aggression (like a prong-collar correction) can really raise the stakes in a not so good way. I guess the perception of the extremity of taking air away is based on a person's individual experience. I've found it to be the most humane yet effective way to deal with and diffuse serious aggression problems.