AKC-CGC Instructor and Therapy Evaluator
Pawsibilities Unleashed
Pet Therapy of Kentucky, Inc.
Let me give you my impression of dongs on prongs, when I see one like this, I know it has not been trained to use its mind and be a free thinker. I also know it is not under control for YOU, but under the control of a collar. Proved that at a workshop this weekend where the lady was so proud her Doberman was on a prong......I told her to strip the dog naked and it should work for her if she were correct in her assumption that the dog would obey her without it. Dog left the country........could not wait to get away from her and force training. It did not want nor did it volunteer to be with her and part of their team. worked 15 minutes with dog on loose leash and she was right there with me, following me, would not get off me...like Velcro.
Drop "No" word. As soon as you use it and it comes out of your mouth you have changed your body language and tone to a negative read. If the dog is not sitting and you say, "NO" Sit, the no takes all the positive away from the Sit before you even get to the Sit. the dog is already put into a negative teach/train/learn situation before it has a chance to understand why it is not correct to Sit. Dogs know how to Sit, Down, Stand, Run, mine do it every day. What they do not understand is, your verbal tone for Sit, your hand signal for Sit, your body language for Sit.......so it is you job to teach them and educate them in your language.
Service dogs need to learn to tether, even outside.
A prong, choke or shock collar will make a dog worse when they are pulling or have any aggression issues, fear issues, etc. Also, how a dog thinks is not how humans think. Example:
(1) your dog is on a shock fence collar
(2) kids ride by on bicycle
(3) Dog charges fence
(4) Dog gets shocked
From the dogs thought process, what caused the shock? 6 months later the owner calls me saying his dog is very child aggressive for no reason and will chase them, pull them off bikes.....has not clue why......
Well, from the dogs point of view, it was focused on the child/bike when it got shocked....it associated the shock with the child...bad assoc...and compounded on this until it hated kids. It did not see that running to the invisible fence (that dog cannot see) was causing the shock.
Same with prongs:
(1) Your dog is on a prong, choke, shock, slip collar
(2) Kids ride by on bicycle
(3) Dog charges kids
(4) Dog gets popped on then neck by owner jerking leash
(5) Dog now says, kids come by, I was right, I got my neck jerked off, now I will be more aggressive and tell kids to go away, get away from me, it makes mom go crazy and jerk my head off, and if you scare her that much you must really be a threat.
It is much safer psychologically and physically to work the dog off body harness so you have control of the dogs center of gravity. A 4 footed animal ahs 60% of its body weight on the front legs (stands over ground, chest, head, ears, nose) and 40% on its rear. If you control the chest of the dog, then you control the strongest point of the dog and the percentage of body they use for leverage and jumping, lunging, etc.
Focus on the mind of the dog and learning it. Anyone can do physical obedience, Sit, Down, Etc., but stop and think, does your dog not already know this? you see your dog sit, down, stand, run all the time on its own. What the dog does not know is:
(1) Your verbal tone for what they already do for Sit
(2) Your hand signal for what they already do for Sit
(3) Your body language for what they already know is Sit
We understand what Sit is. We do it all day long. All by ourselves, but if we are in a conference and the head speaker says, "everyone needs to take a seat", we understand that means we park our butts on a chair. We have learned this over the years of our life and been conditioned to do just that when someone says to. Same with dogs, we condition them to understand that when we say Sit it means what they already know as Sit.
http://www.dogSTARdaily.com
Dr. Ian Dunbar who I studied under
Also, I studied under Dr. William Campbell
MeBO Research
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