I started out when he was young with the prong too loose, went though 2 classes that way. Found my way here, got the fit corrected. BUT, now the last couple days I have noticed it is too tight. I added a link and it is loose enough to slip down some. Not all the way down, but enough that it is affecting my control I feel like. Does anyone have a half link? :-)

And this is my dumb move of the day. We were walking this morning in a place i thought we would not meet anything big distraction wise. I was curious as to how the prong would work turned inside out. I walk him at time just on a martingale, only needing the prong for distractions, and he does fine. So off we go.

Well guess what we meet but not one but two loose dogs. I should have been prepared.I was just the one the other day saying you meet them in the places you don't expect to and haven't before. And he is pretty reactive still friendly wise but wanting to get there to them. Can I tell you how well the prong collar worked, turned inside out-NOT. SO I flip it around and we meet ANOTHER dog. I whacked him with a riding crop and he tucked his tail and made for home.

SO I have two more issues. He pulled himself REALLY tight on the prong, welll as tight as it would go. To where he choked, and coughed afterwards. I have been adamant about no choke collars from day one. I am concerned over the trachea damage, spine, muscles, etc. Could that have hurt him, and how can I tell. He pulled, not jerked, but pulled tight, and was doing the hind leg stand on the end of it towards the other dog. No, I was not in good control,but I was holding him in place, and the other dog was a few yards away.

Here is the last question. taking into consideration that I 'm not dumb enugh to have the collar on backwards again, I am still at times ending up with him pulling and not being able to get a good jerk correction on the prong. This is when something has overridden the lure of the treat and i have lost his attention. Is my timing just off. Once he gets to the end of the slack it is impossible it seems for me to get slack back in it to correct him properly. Am I just too slow in the correction? Getting a good correction has always been an issue but I have gotten better. But not good apparently. I know trying to help a timing issue maybe from a post can be tough, but I wanted to ask. I know it should work better than this.

Hi Julie,
I feel for you with these problems, as I have gone through some of the same things with my GSD. He's an adult now, and the problems are minimal, but I remember how it was.

Here are some observations I made, with the benefit of hindsight, mind you, about those problems. When you have a young dog doing the nutso-at-end-of-leash performance, you're not going to get any training in. For me, it ended up being much better teaching him commands more thoroughly in a less exciting scenario, over and over, for months until the right responses just became habit. Before that age/training level, forget it! I just managed as best as I could. Later on, you will see that you can stop the big reaction before it starts, with a "leave it" or whatever you have trained. In any case, the seriousness of your corrections can come way down (and their effectiveness goes up) once the dog has the right habits.

Once your dog "leaves it" when the other dog is at a distance, life becomes easier, because the other dog will also stop keying off your dog's crazy behavior.

A quick note about charging dogs. We've been charged by a rottie here, a rottie there. The handy thing about country "loose" dogs is they know damn well not to mess with shouting tall skinny animals cause they get the boot. If one charges your dog, most often an extremely stern "NO" and aggressive movement/eyes towards the dog will at least make them think about it, if not run away a little ways. Most dogs respond to threatening behavior in a way that will work in your favor. If you come across dogs that don't, take it seriously and be prepared to defend yourself.

Thanks for your reply. You know we were on our way to the park this morning, where he did wonderfully. He is making huge improvement in the situation where the dog isn't trying to engage him. And most who are being walked on a leash are not trying to get in his face.

But here is what we thought of doing from your post. We have another dog at home. She has never had anything to do with him, but they are familiar with each other. They are kept separated, except through the kennel. So he still has that same "draw" to get to her. If we put her on a leash and we practice in the yard with her as the strange dog, then we can practice in his home environment and get him in the habit of doing what I want him to do.

I found this morning that as great as he is doing ignoring people walking, jogging, bicycling, whatever, if someone stops and talks he thinks they are there to visit with him, and he is still a bundle of excitement. Well, it is progress, but not perfection, yet.

It was also an issue this morning keeping the collar inplace, but it is just so tight if I take out the extra link. Seriously need a half link!

I got a better fit by ordering the one with smaller links......it's a lot easier to fit than the large (in my humble opinion.)

I downsized to the medium from the large. For a rottie, I thought that would be satisfactory. I wonder if some extra smaller links would fit the medium collar?

Sounds great, Julie. Having your own extra dog to help solve training problems seems pretty handy to me.

I know if I let my dog get so far as to be standing on the end of the leash, all the yanking, prong or not, is going to be ineffective. I know now I need to back up, think about the command that I'm teaching him (dogs don't really do vague things like, "don't bark at that squirrel," LOL) and teach it to him more often with less exciting distractions. Teaching "leave it" really is a good go-to command.

I spent a lot of time with mine, a couple handfuls of grilled lamb, and some patience. I'd drop a couple pieces of the lamb between us, telling him to leave it (I keep my hand close enough to cover if he goes for it). When I see he is looking to me for direction, I tell him "OK!" and give him some of that lamb from my hands. I gradually increased the time and decreased the distance to his face, taking care to make a fun dog game. At the end of the game, he always gets the jackpot of what I have left.

I taught "off" with similar methods. I use "off" to generally mean all four feet on the ground. This applies to people, counters, etc. It's a big pain in the booty to get this training down, but it pays off and you will be able to enjoy your dog more.

But with dogs, all things happen gradually and out of habit, so you gotta keep that in mind. Good luck Julie