I was looking through our log files and noticed that someone had entered a search that asked: “Why use prong dog collars?
The question reminded me of the response given by famous bank robber Willie Sutton when asked why he robbed banks: “Because that’s where you find the money,” said Sutton.
Why Use Prong Dog Collars?
Because That’s Where You
Find The Results.
Now, don’t mistake my point: There is no big money in training with a prong collar. In fact, there is so much propaganda and misinformation lobbied at trainers who use the prong collar that I can only guess at the millions of dollars of revenue that we balanced trainers don’t make as a result of “purely positive” trainers being… well… purely negative about other approaches to dog training.
If a guy wanted to really make money, he’d focus exclusively on “purely positive” techniques (read: Cookie bribery) and promote himself as a cookie pusher. (My term, not theirs). Most dog owners who haven’t done much research simply love the idea of being able to throw cookies at their dog to make him behave. There’s only one problem: Cookie bribery doesn’t work on 90% of the dogs a professional dog trainer is called upon to fix. I wish it weren’t the case, but using what the cookie-pushers psycho-babble refers to as “negative punishment” (taking away or withholding something the dog wants) simply doesn’t work when the dog’s negative behavior is a self-rewarding behavior. I.E., The dog barks because it’s fun to bark.
Those of us who use the prong dog collar as one of the tools in our bag of tricks do so because it works. You get fast results, and despite the cookie pushers’ propaganda… using a prong collar is no more “violence” against the dog than when the mama dog corrects the puppy by giving a nip on the neck. Still don’t believe me? Take a look at some of my videos on Youtube and you’ll see happy, relaxed dogs who understand what, “No!” means. The surprising thing is: Saying, “No!” to your dog (and using a prong collar correction to attach a negative association to the word, “No!” doesn’t kill the dog’s spirit anymore than when I ask my mother, “Should I turn left here?” and she says, “No!”
It doesn’t “hurt our relationship” because she tells me, “No!” any more than when the Mama dog corrects the puppy: With her mouth. Again I reiterate: We use the prong collar to replicate how the mama dog corrects the puppies.
Why Use Prong Dog Collars? Because There’s
Nothing Wrong With Telling Your Dog, “No!”
There’s something else wrong with the cookie pushers: They’ll try to tell you that pack theory doesn’t exist. It’s been “disproven” because some egghead anthropologist (who’s never trained a difficult dog in his life) wrote a paper and said so.
As if writing a scientific paper hypothesizing that a theory is incorrect makes it untrue… just like the academics who hypothesized that communism would mean the end of capitalism.
Uh, huh. “Okay.”
Watch this video and tell me that dogs don’t correct each other:
So, if there’s nothing wrong with using a prong dog collar… what’s keeping you? Because some dog-nerd will try to shame you into believing that you’re hurting your dog, despite common sense evidence to the contrary? Does the Golden Retriever in the linked video– who was trained with both a prong collar and a remote electronic collar– look like his spirit was killed?
Come on…
Learn how to use a prong dog collar. Learn to use it the right way: Like any other training tool, it can be misused, but let’s be frank: You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to learn how to properly and safely use the prong collar. With a little common sense and a little knowledge, you can get amazing results in literally minutes, while your “purely positive” dog trainer friend takes months to teach her dog the same behavior. And in the end your dog will be a happier, more balanced pet for it, too. And when your friends want to know why you use prong dog collars you’ll be able to both explain why and also show them with your well trained dog.