How to Train Your Dog on a Prong Collar | The SAFE Way!

hello my name is Morgan I'm a professional dog trainer and in today's video I going to teach you the ins the outs the everything you need to know about prong collar a lot of people are scared to use prong colar and I'm happy about that because the truth is they can be used wrong so I'm here to educate you on how to use them to benefit you in your dog's relationship so let's just kick it off with like how do you know you even need a prong collar well my rule of thumb is I always start with totally different training equipment before I even start with a prong collar my foster dog crash I've started him off on a slip leash you could start your dog off on a harness a dental leader a nopull harness you can use all things and just see how your dog responds what I'm personally finding with crash is that he's very willing to pull into the slip leash which is applying a lot of pressure to his throat and I can apply leash pressure all day every day and he just doesn't care he immediately makes mistakes even after all of the training and teaching that I've done with him so ultimately your training equipment should change your dog's Behavior and what ends up happening with really strong strong willed stubborn dogs is that this lower level training equipment doesn't change their behavior they feel the pressure that you apply to your leash but it doesn't phase them that's really what I'm looking for does it help them to stay focused and training and keep his attention on me to help in those moments with really big distractions like squirrels and people and cars and other dogs and all the things that are in the world but what size should you get I prefer to train with a two .25 which looks really small obviously and isn't going to fit all dogs what I like to do with these is just buy additional links and then make it so I can personally size it to each and every dog the great thing about training with a 2.25 is the size of the prong is so small you're able to adjust it to the width of the dog's neck a lot easier versus the bigger prong collars these what ends up happening is when I'm sizing it to a dog if I take out one of these lengths because it's bigger sometimes the collor fits too tight or it fits way too big and the dog needs like an in between size for the collar to be fit appropriately on their neck now I do find that these are actually really beneficial for dogs with longer coats so Australian Shepherds German Shepherds golden retrievers sometimes I find that these smaller prongs can get tangled up in dogs with longer coats and then that's not comfortable if it's getting tangled in their fur so you make that decision for your dog the small one are the bigger one don't get the extra large ones those are just way too big I don't care if you have a great Daye I prefer to add link to make it fit the dog not necessarily go with the bigger sizes so 2.25 or the three now let's get into proper fit cuz this is the most important part of the pra collar is that it should properly fit on your dog you should not be able to slide this on and off of their head if you can it is way too big and it's a glorified necklace so the proper fit of a prong collar should actually fit up at the highest point of the dog's neck I'm talking like right under the chin right behind the ears so that way it's sitting up above the trachea and we're not putting any impact here like a flat collar might that's why it's going to be important to buy those extra links or even take links out so you can make sure that you're sizing it to their dog which then gets into the topic of how the heck do you get it on them so on any one of these you can take the prongs on and off I tend to avoid the end ones and the one on the plate so I don't take it on and off of this plate right here and the plates down there at the end I like to take my pointer finger Loop it under my thumb push down make a triangle look at my cute little triangle I have here see this see this see this and then I just push real hard with my thumb going down my pointer finger going up triangle push to get it back in the trick here is to pinch right at the tippy top if you try and pinch down here at the base there is no give it's not moving anywhere the trick is to Pinch at the top that's where you're going to have a little bit of give so I pinch at the top to make it smaller I stick one prong in pinch slide it in in again I can do so on any one of these and you can take one completely out if you need to make it smaller or you can add some to make it bigger now on the bigger one the three you can actually just push these together see how I just push up from any which way I push up and it sticks out there all I'm going to do is pinch what sticks out and then pull it out now let me tell you this takes some finger strength it took me quite a while to get comfortable with the prone collar um and build up that muscle strength but once you do it's super easy if you do struggle to get this on and off of your dog they do make replacement pieces for this plate right here so you can take the plate off and then replace it with a quick release you know the Snap-on snap off that's on your dog's flat collar you can put one of those here which makes your life so much easier when putting this on and off of your dog when attaching a leash to the prong collar you're always going to attach it to the d-ring not the O-ring you see if you attach it to the O ring it's like gets all twisted and misc combobulated and it doesn't function the same when you attach it to to the d-ring it creates a triangle for this to open and close and release so how often should your dog be wearing the prong collar here's the thing dogs become color smart that means your dog figures out click the color goes on we're in a training session so now I'm going to be focused now I'm going to listen because you have the ability to reinforce these commands click it comes off and it's a total freefor all that means your dog is listening to the equipment not necessarily listening to you which is not the goal the end goal with any training equipment that you use is to fade away from it but it takes 6 months for training to go into a dog's long-term memory so the goal is for 6 months your dog should be in training and while they're in training they're going to be wearing the prong collar from the moment they wake up to the very end of the day with some exceptions these exceptions are if they're going to be outside unsupervised you should be taking off all training equipment and that includes flat collar take off the prong collar take off the flat collar your dogs shouldn't be wearing anything if they're outside unsupervised just because God forbid they get hooked or caught on something the easiest thing is to just avoid the scenario and take it off of them and then the other scenario is when you leave the house when you leave the house and your dog is crated you can go ahead and take that off anytime I have the dogs in the crates I just take it off cuz there's just no need to be wearing it while they're in the crate but outside of that if your dog is just hanging out around the house I want you to treat this like their work uniform so first thing in the morning they get up they get dressed for work at the very end of the day when it's time to go back in your crate or go on your dog bed to go to sleep you can get in your jammies and take off the prong collar and get NY the reason why this is so important is because it prevents your dog from becoming collor smart if the equipment is on your dog all day you can train your dog in any aspect of your day but you're not queuing them with equipment going on the equipment's just already on them so then your dog's listening to you and not your equipment all right so we've covered all the boring basic stuff when it comes to the prong collar now it's actually time to put it on your dog and condition it that's right you heard me we need to condition what this feeling means so let's go get crash and put it in action put it on him I'm putting it up super high right behind his ears now I can there's an extra link here I don't know if you can see that but it's one too big so I'm going to take one out lock it in I can still easily rotate it around his neck I can still fit fingers underneath but it's sitting up as high as it can go it's a little bit big but if I take out one more it's probably going to be a little bit too tight and I would prefer it be a little bit too big than too small listen here sassy pants we're going to go outside and we're going to go for a walk and there's no more pulling on the leash okay Mis crash hello is anyone in there and now we're outside so remember that name game we played in one of my very first videos if you haven't watched that go back and start there I'm going to play the exact same concept of the name game but now with the prong colar on and all I'm looking to do is show him that when he feels pressure it doesn't mean keep pulling into it instead it means come back into my bubble I'll say his name apply the leash pressure and then pair it with a treat now before you start your session I do like to reposition the prong up high so we're going to slide it up here SL Excuse me yes sir repositioning it so it's above his trachea up nice and high before we start the training session crash good crash good so the prong colar is just going to have a little bit more of a pop to it than the slip leash crash and the really big benefit to the prong collar is that it evenly distributes the pressure around the neck versus your flat collar or your slip leash is just going to keep it right there at the front crash this the prongs come around equally Crush good you'll notice he's not shutting down his tail is not tucking he's not crying or Screaming or wailing it's just helping to keep his attention more and now look now he's even staying more focused on me so your prong caller should just change your dog's Behavior if you're reading your dog's body language if they're confused or nervous or unsure prong haer might not be for them crash good and then we can start to condition it with some other commands so he does know sit he understands that leash pressure up means put his butt down so let's do that with the prong collar to make sure he understands that kind of pressure with the prong collar sit just like that sit good sit good do a little bit of a Sit Stay here nice dude now you'll notice the prong color has fallen down we started up here and it has slid down but I would prefer this over taking out one more link and it being way too tight so yes it is fit a little big on him yes it's going to slide down but you'll see that he's not pulling into it this is nice and relaxed and the only time he's feeling it is that one little second where I apply the pressure and then release it so not the end of the world if it's a little too big if it's way too big yes it is the end of the world and then the prong color is not even going to work so it needs to be just right to finish up the conditioning process of the prong color you can pair it with all of your obedience commands so here I've done it with loose leash walking I've done it with sit and then you can also do it with Place remember that last video I posted if you haven't watched it make sure you go back to see it all you're going to do is save Place apply pressure with a prong collar and then reset your dog back onto the bed the prong colar is just going to add a little bit more of a correction that helps for your wild crazy goofy dogs like crash to maintain their attention and focus on training so hopefully this helps you guys feel a little bit better about the prong col and using it with your own dog go slow take your time and if you're feeling a little unsure reach out to a trainer in your area it is always best to go with a trainer's guidance they're going to be able to tell you if it's the right or wrong tool for you and your dog make sure you guys are subscribed because the next video is going to be how to teach your dog to heal woo you need that you need it you need to learn that okay happy training

Channel: Wild Dogs

Views: 3,895

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Id: lsyZoMWXdWw

Length: 11min 26sec (686 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 04 2024