Official Prong Collar Advocate

[bckrazy]

Oh, I totally agree, Jess. I didn't mean to imply that you or anyone here who uses prongs puts their dogs through true "pain"... but, it obviously causes discomfort, or it wouldn't have any affect.

I think it is a tool that should be used as a last resort, that's just my opinion, though. And, honestly, I don't think a pet store or a busy shopping area is the ideal place to start prong training. Instead, the backyard would be a good place, or anywhere devoid of anything that the dog could associate the discomfort with, besides pulling.

[shepgirl]

Bckrazy I think you might be on to something nobody has thought of before.
I think some dogs might associate the correction with when it was corrected, for example pulling to get to someone or something.
Out trainer uses these for extrememly hard dogs so I can't wait to discuss this with her.

This triggered a memory from long ago. My friend went riding and her Sheltie tagged along, For some reason the dog screamed out in pain and my girlfriend thought the horse might have stepped on it's toes. But when she returned home the dog was limping badly and wouldn't go near her or the horse. She had it vetted and found out it was the kneecap that had turned or something, had nothing to do with the horse, it just happens with shelties. To this day, the Sheltie refuses to go near the horse.

What I don't understand is if the dog has been chosen for service work, why would someone train it with a prong? I've never seen any SD trained with a prong, facilities just don't use them.

[NicoleLJ]

Shepgirl that is just not true. You certianly like to make generalized statments. I used to be just as nieve about the prong though as you. Lots of trainers who are and facilities and owner trainers are using the prong today. For the main reason that it helps a weaker werson work a stronger dog. There are many a person that are in wheelchairs, or have walking problems or so on that are owner training their dogs. They need something to help them train their dog that is easy to use and does not take a lot of strength. This is the tool they use. Just because you have not see it does not mean it is not used.

Please do not make generalized statemments about isues you know nothing about. I am on many Service dog boards that have members that owner trained their dog and members that got their dogs from facilities. Some of them from both groups use prongs. They are the ones that helped me decided to use it on Ajax.

Again just because you have not seen it does not mean it is not done. And I suggest you start reading what you type before you post it. Your generalized statements about groups of people are starting to tick me off.
Nicole

[SemaviLady]

What I don't understand is if the dog has been chosen for service work, why would someone train it with a prong? I've never seen any SD trained with a prong, facilities just don't use them.

I've been disabled all my life and know many adults that are disabled since birds of a feather tend to find each other. Many of us use service dogs in an official or less formal capacity.

Dogs chosen for service work are NOT machines. They are still capable of having bad days and good days and facing new situations with which they are not yet comfortable. Their handlers also have built in limitations which can require some unique approaches and many disabled people cannot wait two years or more for a program trained dog, so they have to train their own using adaptive techniques. Some like me, use their own dogs that show that special talent as adults, others may adopt a younger dog and hope it turns out.

We can't generalize about handicapped people, their abilities, range of motion, ability to react in a timely manner, their strengths and weaknesses ...

hey for that matter -- step back a bit.... you cannot even generalize about an able bodied person training a dog. Put 15 able bodied people into a dog training class with dogs from different breed genres, from terriers to gun dogs, to toys, herding dogs and flock guardians, and voila... you have a collection of people who have diverse levels of different strengths and abilities, as do their dogs. Tiny frail people do not necessarily want to have a tiny frail dog. Klutzy people sometimes own fast athletic dogs. Some speedy "type A" people like to have a lumbering big dog that is slow and methodical.

There ya go. They need a trainer, communication mediator sensitive enough to find the right tools to help establish a working partnership and successful communication between each pair of members in each unique team.

That is asking a lot even with able bodied people. We know many able bodied people leave a class taught by an able bodied trainer and yet they still have a dog out of control when they leave class. - Left (leash) arm longer than the right? (check) The dog believes the leash is made of rubber? (check) Dog pees at every sign post and ignores the handler? (check) The dog still leaves in a heartbeat if it sees a squirrel? (check)

Pray tell, what kind of dog trainer was that? "Politically correct" artist who paints by number? Sometimes you have to be a Picasso. You do have to blend tools and 'colors' and dirt in order to get success.

Dog trainers who are attuned to their students and the student's dogs know that each part of the team creates a potential need for a different approach and sometimes different equipment. To think otherwise is rather arrogant.

A person I know who has MS and one leg, helps to train other people with their service dogs from wheel chair (on her good days). Some of these people may be paralyzed in a limb but they need a big dog to help them with their balance to help them feel safe when they are walking alone in the inner city. Do you know how to help train them to train their dogs while they are manipulating a walker or wheelchair? What if they are having a bad day and have spasms? Remember this is a service dog that will have to work without a trainer overseeing them when the handler has a bad day. A prong collar may help a person who has wrist problems or who needs to lock their hands onto a walker.

Many disabled people who train their own dogs are quite attuned to dog language of their own dog(s). If they see their service dog yawning or averting their eyes, they know something is up and know to look to see what the dog is telling them. Some of them due to their specific limitations and even preferences, do use prong collars - I have only used it for specific situations and sometimes it is years before I dust it off again. Some use ruffled bungees to cover the collars to protect them from being harrassed by 'dog experts' who know so much better than anyone and who jump to conclusions.

I have some pics and a blog post about my service dogs here.

[NicoleLJ]

SemaviLady - Awesome post.
Nicole

[shepgirl]

Bckrazy, of course you deserve praise and a lot of credit. If not for you mentioning this fact we would have continued training with the same old ways. The trainer is so busy, she doesn't get much time to ggogle anything, She's one of the best and to remain the best she continues taking clinics and courses on dog behavior. So this really helped her . She will be incorporating this in her next newsletter. We try as hard as we can to rectify problems, but with the multitude of dogs with individual temperaments it gets hard to follow what everybody seems to take for granted...focus on those different temperaments.
Of course we have the flunkies, but we consider the owners flunkies since they never pay attention, never come back for the next lesson with their dog prepared, etc.
Our trainer is now working on revamping her whole teaching methods.
Take a bow Bckrazy....

[shepgirl]

SemaviLady - I didn't realize you were talking about people training their own dogs. I thought we were talking about training of dogs in facilities. That's why I was saying they never use prong collars. But yes, I watch people train their family dogs with prongs all the time, the prong isn't new to me. One place that will absolutely NOT use them is PetSmart. For some reason it is against the store policy, just found that out while talking to a salesclerk while doing some shopping there.

[NicoleLJ]

SemaviLady - I didn't realize you were talking about people training their own dogs. I thought we were talking about training of dogs in facilities. That's why I was saying they never use prong collars. But yes, I watch people train their family dogs with prongs all the time, the prong isn't new to me. One place that will absolutely NOT use them is PetSmart. For some reason it is against the store policy, just found that out while talking to a salesclerk while doing some shopping there.

Shepgirl she was not talking about family dogs and you know it. She was talking about dogs being trained to be Service Dogs. Dogs that are trained to be Service dogs with the prong. Stop twisting things.
Nicole

[SemaviLady]

SemaviLady - I didn't realize you were talking about people training their own dogs. I thought we were talking about training of dogs in facilities. That's why I was saying they never use prong collars.

I'm not posting to argue but to clarify some core issues.

The OP was talking about real life scenarios and you happened to mention SD facilities in the course of the discussion, which I perceived as a general example for supporting the argument of non-use of the prong collar.

If you examine your comment, you say these facilities train without prongs.

Here is a main issue. Trainers in facilities are not not your average joe and they are not training average dogs. Do be aware that dogs chosen by SD 'facilities' for training are a subset of reality and the entire scenario has little similarity to real life circumstances and actual users of SDs and the eventual owners who need control over their dogs.

Compare real life dogs to the following:
Facility trained dogs are often expected to be certain generic breeds with selectively endorsed, despecialized behaviors. To further differentiate them from 'typical dogs', most used in service work are initially screened using a Vollhard type test and other protocols (and yet still result in 50% failure on average but this is another issue and an area where I also have experience).

What is "despecialized"? These dogs represent a population that are not intense herders, earthdogs, hunters, sighthounds, protection breeds, flock guardians, or gun dogs. These selected are not highly independent dogs which can have strong opinions about what their canine purpose on earth shall be and so ...they are ruled out. Dogs that are chosen are usually social, people oriented, medium or softer in temperament and are characteristically despecialized representatives of a limited number of breeds.

Secondly: Regardless of breed, these dogs are expected to be trainable for the professional SD trainer who is using predefined "accepted" protocols of training -- or else, the dogs are systematically removed from the training program when they are not adaptable to the program's methods.

Above selection scenario has elements of 'fixing the outcome' due to preselection ...and continuous removal of dogs from the programs.

It does not represent the general population of dogs. It can hardly be used as an endorsement for the non-use of prong collars.

I am not dissing positive methods of training method that work.

BF Skinner wrote about operant conditioning. It was only later that some took the methods, applied them to dogs and later there started to be a sort of religious jihad against other methods.

And finally, back to the program trained service dogs -- another reality check. ---

SD users (and the public) do run into certified program trained dogs whose owners are not able to consistently "perform" with their dogs with the same level of response as did their dog's trainers. --- NOT that it is happened, but to think that SD trainers could actually take a moral high ground due to the fact that they personally did not need prongs to train dogs to meet their own training goals, has very little practical relevance to the SD user who is not as 'accomplished' or able bodied enough -- and who desperately needs to stop their dog 5 seconds from now, from ripping their arm partly out of its socket. A prong could fix that in a second without argument from the dog.

But yes of course, bravo to the dog's initial trainer who didn't personally need it themselves.

On my site, I have written:

The best Trainers are those who never stop learning.

* They are the ones who have learned not to base their opinions about the usefulness of a training method, on the inability of someone (or a population of people) to understand and learn to use a method correctly.
* They are the ones best equipped to work with the sometimes unconventional (but so true-to-life) combinations of individual idiosyncrasies, personal strengths, and weaknesses which present with each student-dog/handler team.

. . .even when it means they must revise previously held concepts and challenge old ideas.