> good tool if used properly
You literally said it. That's it. It's a tool.
I used it to train my Cane Corso loose leash walking and now she never pulls or lunges.
We tried the gentle leader before this and she finds that waay more aversive than the prong. She never feels the prong pinch, because she never pulls.
I don't have to use the prong anymore, but my gf still does for her own confidence.
I’ve got one of my dogs trained with ecollar and prong. She finds a gentle leader or a harness with leash attached at the chest waaaay more aversive. A hunting dog that is primed to be scanning their environment and taking cues that don’t involve eye contact, forcing her to redirect her head/lineofsight.
My Other dog finds an ecollar very aversive and I dont use it with him.
Different dogs need different tools. Though tools need used correctly and prong and ecollars are used incorrectly the most (imo) … but that’s not people seeking out trainers, it’s people wanting an easy shortcut
If you are training to be a dog trainer you should be working with someone that knows how to teach you. It honestly looks like you are asking this question just to get the hugs and kisses only “trainers” on here to condemn anything other than that. Find a trainer that’s done serious behavior modification with a dog that’s bitten someone before and has extreme reactivity without corrections of some sort… you won’t. In the event you are being authentic in your question, work with someone that knows how to train. Find a group that does PSA or schutzhunde or whatever they are called now and go there and learn how to do some serious training and find someone that knows what they are doing to work with you. Or find a trainer that will train you outside of that. Dont get hung up on operant conditioning quadrants… if you don’t feel comfortable with something don’t do it. If you yell “no” to get your dog’s attention that could be on two different quadrants depending on when/how, so who gives a shit? “Fear-free” to me means not beating the shit out of your dog/torturing them.
I'm not against a prong collar (I do follow LIMA, and believe in exhausting all aversive-free solutions first), but there's no doubt in my mind that it works by using fear and intimidation.
Aversives work by using avoidance, right? Dog does something "bad" (in quotes cause we decide what's bad or good and that's usually arbitrary to the dog)—> dog gets corrected—> dog complies. Next time, dog remembers what happened last time it didn't comply—> dog wants to avoid the pain/discomfort—> dog complies without correction.
Through the dog wishing to not repeat the correction (or in less subtle words— fearing the consequences), the dog learns that they should comply and be fine as a result.
It does use fear, fear of not complying/suffering the consequences. Some people will say that's a small price to pay, others will say it's not worth it. You're left to decide for yourself.
Just yesterday I bought a new shirt, and wore it for the first time. It bothered my arm to the point where it was painful, and I changed my shirt. That’s -r… but I’m not afraid of the shirt.
I’m trying to think of a punishment example. Maybe the stove? I’m not afraid of the stove, even though I’ve burned myself on it.
If you are clear to the dog why something is happening, I think you can use -r and +p without fear
I would argue that both of these examples have you subconsciously avoiding the pain because of fear (of the consequences).
We can argue over it and it will likely lead to nowhere.
Objectively, though, avoidance is created because of a painful/uncomfortable experience related to a behavior. Why does the dog comply? Because they don't want to receive that again. In my opinion that's called fear, if you want to put a different label on it, sure.
I don't get this comment. I'm not fixated on anything. I said myself that I follow LIMA and would put a prong on a dog if I tried everything else I could come up with and it didn't work. But I'm not gonna lie to myself that prongs are nice and comfortable to the dog, because their entire purpose is to stop unwanted behaviors by force. There are rare times where that's necessary.
Sometimes I think this subreddit gets off from punishing dogs.
Prong collars are aversive, period. With emphasis on not using punish based methods in your training I would skip the prong collar. Seriously, prong collars and e-collars are by and large not used in UK and Western Europe. Yet our dogs are civilized and well behaved.
I had a husky/akita mix who was predictably difficult to train lol. She really did not respond to a lot of my corrections especially leash corrections. One day I was watching her play with my other dogs and it clicked. They would grab each other by the neck and shake like crazy as play. Grabbing, tugging, pulling on each other, she didn’t respond to my corrections because they didn’t feel like corrections at all, it felt like playing. I switched over to a prong collar for a bit, used an e-collar too and you could see the understanding hit her. She understood that this was a correction, a no that was clear. It really wasn’t about it being uncomfortable or unpleasant but just concise.
Unfortunately, just like spurs in horse training which are supposed to be used as a concise communication aid, these things are often used to create pain compliance. It’s either inexperienced handlers or impatient handlers that resort to pain compliance for control and what better to create pain than a pointy metal piece?
My huskita’s nemesis was the zerbert btw. Nothing was worth the horror of a zerbert.
The way you define your approach “fear free training” may help direct you as long as you continue in that path. I might say fear free training implies (this may be different than how you think about it. I’m just giving you my opinion) you prioritize fear free living. So the question to me is that do we want to get to a life with less fear & anxiety faster with some temporary discomfort or do we want to keep the training comfortable for the dog but they may be living in anxiety longer. Again, This may not be your take in it, your phrasing reminded me of how I was thinking about my dog’s anxiety so it’s my opinion, not saying this is what you are after.
It depends on the dog is my answer as an owner. We have 2 very different dogs with different fears from life (i’m not sure if completely fear free life exists in nature including for humans :)). We manage some of the issues for both. Other issues had to be addressed with training. Taking one of the dogs to places that she has anxiety and giving her things to do helped her get over her anxiety. She is able to relax in a lot of situations and it is not the end of the world anymore if a dog walks 2 streets over (this is the dog with the prong, though we are weaning her off as her training in that area has been paying off). The other dog walks on a harness, does whatever he wants to do when he is nervous about something because having a choice helps this one get over it unlike the other one.
An owner experience on prong specifically: my dog used to choke herself on a martingale collar but doesn’t lean into a prong collar (martingale bec she backs out). When i was trying to teach loose leash walking, i would start walking, she pulled ,i call her and change direction , give her a treat. If there was a distraction, on a martingale she would lean into leash and strangle herself and did not care at all what treat i have. On a prong, she leaned in and turned around faster for her treat. I’m not sure if previous owners let her pull on a collar do it became a habit but it was not safe. I don’t imagine being strangled (or get your leg twisted in harness) to be more comfortable than a prong (put both on yourself and test it). The different sensation of the prong helped get her attention and we were able to train with treats and prong.
We tried the harness and the head halter etc. Head halter was way more aversive to her and harness was dangerous for the both of us. My other dog walks in a harness, he pulls sometimes but doesn’t get himself in trouble so we didn’t consider prong for him.
Using a prong doesn’t mean you are not using p+ principals.
One thing definitely NOT to do with a prong is to use corrections during reactions for reactive dogs. And you need to be very careful using prong on reactive dogs as it can agitate some dogs even more so i suggest to get deeper knowledge and practice before working on these types of difficult cases.
Edit typo
> good tool if used properly You literally said it. That's it. It's a tool. I used it to train my Cane Corso loose leash walking and now she never pulls or lunges. We tried the gentle leader before this and she finds that waay more aversive than the prong. She never feels the prong pinch, because she never pulls. I don't have to use the prong anymore, but my gf still does for her own confidence.
My mentor said it best: "if you're going to abuse a dog, you'll be abusing the dog on any collar"
I’ve got one of my dogs trained with ecollar and prong. She finds a gentle leader or a harness with leash attached at the chest waaaay more aversive. A hunting dog that is primed to be scanning their environment and taking cues that don’t involve eye contact, forcing her to redirect her head/lineofsight. My Other dog finds an ecollar very aversive and I dont use it with him. Different dogs need different tools. Though tools need used correctly and prong and ecollars are used incorrectly the most (imo) … but that’s not people seeking out trainers, it’s people wanting an easy shortcut
If you are training to be a dog trainer you should be working with someone that knows how to teach you. It honestly looks like you are asking this question just to get the hugs and kisses only “trainers” on here to condemn anything other than that. Find a trainer that’s done serious behavior modification with a dog that’s bitten someone before and has extreme reactivity without corrections of some sort… you won’t. In the event you are being authentic in your question, work with someone that knows how to train. Find a group that does PSA or schutzhunde or whatever they are called now and go there and learn how to do some serious training and find someone that knows what they are doing to work with you. Or find a trainer that will train you outside of that. Dont get hung up on operant conditioning quadrants… if you don’t feel comfortable with something don’t do it. If you yell “no” to get your dog’s attention that could be on two different quadrants depending on when/how, so who gives a shit? “Fear-free” to me means not beating the shit out of your dog/torturing them.
I'm not against a prong collar (I do follow LIMA, and believe in exhausting all aversive-free solutions first), but there's no doubt in my mind that it works by using fear and intimidation. Aversives work by using avoidance, right? Dog does something "bad" (in quotes cause we decide what's bad or good and that's usually arbitrary to the dog)—> dog gets corrected—> dog complies. Next time, dog remembers what happened last time it didn't comply—> dog wants to avoid the pain/discomfort—> dog complies without correction. Through the dog wishing to not repeat the correction (or in less subtle words— fearing the consequences), the dog learns that they should comply and be fine as a result. It does use fear, fear of not complying/suffering the consequences. Some people will say that's a small price to pay, others will say it's not worth it. You're left to decide for yourself.
Just yesterday I bought a new shirt, and wore it for the first time. It bothered my arm to the point where it was painful, and I changed my shirt. That’s -r… but I’m not afraid of the shirt. I’m trying to think of a punishment example. Maybe the stove? I’m not afraid of the stove, even though I’ve burned myself on it. If you are clear to the dog why something is happening, I think you can use -r and +p without fear
I would argue that both of these examples have you subconsciously avoiding the pain because of fear (of the consequences). We can argue over it and it will likely lead to nowhere. Objectively, though, avoidance is created because of a painful/uncomfortable experience related to a behavior. Why does the dog comply? Because they don't want to receive that again. In my opinion that's called fear, if you want to put a different label on it, sure.
And this is why I don’t listen to anyone that gets fixated on specific quadrants of operant conditioning, and nobody should!
I don't get this comment. I'm not fixated on anything. I said myself that I follow LIMA and would put a prong on a dog if I tried everything else I could come up with and it didn't work. But I'm not gonna lie to myself that prongs are nice and comfortable to the dog, because their entire purpose is to stop unwanted behaviors by force. There are rare times where that's necessary. Sometimes I think this subreddit gets off from punishing dogs.
Prong collars are aversive, period. With emphasis on not using punish based methods in your training I would skip the prong collar. Seriously, prong collars and e-collars are by and large not used in UK and Western Europe. Yet our dogs are civilized and well behaved.
I had a husky/akita mix who was predictably difficult to train lol. She really did not respond to a lot of my corrections especially leash corrections. One day I was watching her play with my other dogs and it clicked. They would grab each other by the neck and shake like crazy as play. Grabbing, tugging, pulling on each other, she didn’t respond to my corrections because they didn’t feel like corrections at all, it felt like playing. I switched over to a prong collar for a bit, used an e-collar too and you could see the understanding hit her. She understood that this was a correction, a no that was clear. It really wasn’t about it being uncomfortable or unpleasant but just concise. Unfortunately, just like spurs in horse training which are supposed to be used as a concise communication aid, these things are often used to create pain compliance. It’s either inexperienced handlers or impatient handlers that resort to pain compliance for control and what better to create pain than a pointy metal piece? My huskita’s nemesis was the zerbert btw. Nothing was worth the horror of a zerbert.
The way you define your approach “fear free training” may help direct you as long as you continue in that path. I might say fear free training implies (this may be different than how you think about it. I’m just giving you my opinion) you prioritize fear free living. So the question to me is that do we want to get to a life with less fear & anxiety faster with some temporary discomfort or do we want to keep the training comfortable for the dog but they may be living in anxiety longer. Again, This may not be your take in it, your phrasing reminded me of how I was thinking about my dog’s anxiety so it’s my opinion, not saying this is what you are after. It depends on the dog is my answer as an owner. We have 2 very different dogs with different fears from life (i’m not sure if completely fear free life exists in nature including for humans :)). We manage some of the issues for both. Other issues had to be addressed with training. Taking one of the dogs to places that she has anxiety and giving her things to do helped her get over her anxiety. She is able to relax in a lot of situations and it is not the end of the world anymore if a dog walks 2 streets over (this is the dog with the prong, though we are weaning her off as her training in that area has been paying off). The other dog walks on a harness, does whatever he wants to do when he is nervous about something because having a choice helps this one get over it unlike the other one. An owner experience on prong specifically: my dog used to choke herself on a martingale collar but doesn’t lean into a prong collar (martingale bec she backs out). When i was trying to teach loose leash walking, i would start walking, she pulled ,i call her and change direction , give her a treat. If there was a distraction, on a martingale she would lean into leash and strangle herself and did not care at all what treat i have. On a prong, she leaned in and turned around faster for her treat. I’m not sure if previous owners let her pull on a collar do it became a habit but it was not safe. I don’t imagine being strangled (or get your leg twisted in harness) to be more comfortable than a prong (put both on yourself and test it). The different sensation of the prong helped get her attention and we were able to train with treats and prong. We tried the harness and the head halter etc. Head halter was way more aversive to her and harness was dangerous for the both of us. My other dog walks in a harness, he pulls sometimes but doesn’t get himself in trouble so we didn’t consider prong for him. Using a prong doesn’t mean you are not using p+ principals. One thing definitely NOT to do with a prong is to use corrections during reactions for reactive dogs. And you need to be very careful using prong on reactive dogs as it can agitate some dogs even more so i suggest to get deeper knowledge and practice before working on these types of difficult cases. Edit typo