How Would We Introduce a Dog to a Prong Collar?
Paloma is an adolescent old field bred lab who has excelled at her basic obedience but is intense, impulsive, and strong willed. She has a lovely Heel command around a variety of distractions. She has a super high food drive and play drive.
However, there are a few situations where a flat collar or a slip lead is not enough to help her stay on task. We introduced her to a prong collar this week and her response was “thank you for the info, I understand now!” No change in her happy-go-lucky attitude, no avoidance of the collar or her commands, no shift in her relationship with her moms.
The prong collar was so easy to add into her tool box because of all of the work that went into her training, communication, and relationship with her moms. The prong collar works within a larger system that sets the dog up for success and empowers them to make the right choices, rather than suppressing them and relying on pain and fear for compliance.
Does she look scared or in pain in these videos? In fact, they look exactly the same except for the fact she has a prong collar on in the second one!
So how would we set up a dog for a successful transition to a prong collar? Every dog is different and may need a prong collar for a different reason or with a different level of urgency, but here is a basic run down of the steps we would take.
The dog first needs to know how to play a food chasing game which is a core foundation skill in our program. A food chasing game is a great way to reward a dog and build emotional regulation skills. It involves having the dog chase you for food, chase food you have thrown for them, and hold a position like “sit” or “down” as you bring them food. It is fun and utilizes their play, prey, and food drives. Playing a food chasing game is much more fun and valuable than just giving the dog a piece of food as a reward.
The food chasing game also teaches the dog markers, these are words that indicate the dog has done a correct behavior and is going to get a reward. If you have ever heard of clicker training it is the same concept, we just use a dynamic verbal marker system instead of a clicker.
“Yes” means the dog is done with what they are doing and they need to come to us to get a reward. This usually involves us moving away from them and them chasing us.
“Get it” means the dog is done with what they are doing and they can chase a reward we have thrown for them.
“Good” means the dog needs to keep doing what they are doing and we will come to them for a reward.
3. Once the dog is familiar with the food chasing game and a marker system we will start to teach them on a flat collar that if they feel leash taps or pulses they need to engage with us for a food chasing game. We do not use constant leash pressure because that can trigger Opposition Reflex which can cause the dog to pull more and create conflict/confusion. When we introduce this the leash taps/pulses they are light and consistent. The moment the dog responds to the leash taps/pulses and focuses on us we play a game as a reward.
4. Then we will start to introduce the leash taps away from specific distractions. These are distractions we have curated and that the dog is allowed to access. For example we toss a treat away from the dog, but prevent the dog from accessing the treat with the leash. We tap/pulse on the leash until they disengage from the treat and come back to us (“yes”) Once they have come back to us and received a food reward from us, we then release the dog (“get it”) to the treat we originally threw. This is using a concept called the Premack Principle, pairing an unlikely behavior (the dog moving away from a treat and coming to us) with a likely behavior (the dog getting the treat we threw ). A common human example of this is telling a child to clean their room and then they can watch TV. Using the Premack Principle also reduces the dog’s frustration and builds their engagement with the handler. Since we have not restricted them from distractions from the start they are more willing to work with us and respond to the leash taps in hope they can access the distraction.
5. Then we start to explore a variety of distractions with this leash tap concept and pair it with different commands. For example you ask the dog to Heel (which is taught with rewards) and they leave the Heel position so you leash tap/pulses them to help them return to the position. These are still light leash taps/pulses on the flat collar.
6. As you explore more complex and distracting situations with your dog’s new leash tap/pulse skill there will be certain scenarios where the light leash taps on a flat collar are not yielding results or are dangerous (walking on ice in the winter, when a cat randomly runs across the street, when your dog sees their best friend on a walk, you have a shoulder injury etc.) That is when we discuss adding leverage to your leash taps. The smaller the surface area of the collar the more leverage you have. Here is the progression of least leverage to most leverage.
Flat collar → Martingale → Slip Lead → Starmark Collar → Neck Tech → Prong Collar
We help you find the tool that makes sense to your dog and without causing them fear. At this point they have so much experience with leash taps, commands, and working around distractions they should not be confused about adding more leverage.
A few reasons why we like the prong collar:
It is the only tool out of all of these that prevents pressure from being on the dog’s trachea. It has a trachea plate and the prongs face out and up towards the back of the dog’s head. This makes the pressure only on the sides of the dog’s neck.
It has a wide variety of sizes so toy dogs or giant breed dogs can benefit from it.
It does not apply pressure all of the time, it has a mechanism that releases pressure unless there is tension on the neck.
The prongs are rounded and cannot cause injury to the dog. The images online of dogs who have injuries from prongs are from prongs that are too small and left on for long periods of time which is neglectful and not proper usage.
The prong collar may look scary, but in reality it is a very helpful tool that can offer a lot of clarity to your dog if taught properly.