Watch This Video BEFORE Using a Prong Collar

in this video we are talking about prong callers and if you're watching this video on YouTube then the goal of this video is to help you decide if you should use a prong collar for your dog and if you decide to or if you're watching this in our online training program then our goal with this video is to show you how to properly introduce it to your dog so you can start using this tool in your training So the plan for this video we're going to cover why we use prong callar how prong callers work what brand and what size you should buy how to get proper fitment the preconditioning phase and the active conditioning phase so if you watch this video in full and you complete these steps with your dog then you'll be able to use this tool in your training so the very first thing we need to cover is why we use prong callers whenever you do anything with your dog or anything in life you should understand why you're doing it all right so let's talk about why we use PR callers in our training system the video you're watching right now was taken directly from our online training program if you want to take your dog from completely untrained to 100% offleash trained and you want step-by-step video lessons just like this on how to get there and personalized feedback from me along the way check out our online training program it's the first link in the description so if you have watched I recommend you have already watched the how dogs learn and think module right because that lays a very important foundation if you've already watch that video then this graph should look uh pretty familiar to you all right so just very simple here and on this axis we have pressure and on this axis we have perception all right and don't worry this is going to we're going to keep this simple all right so we have pressure and we have perception now before I dive into this a little bit start drawing a bunch of lines I first want to talk about why we use pressure in training right how is pressure used in training well pressure is is used in training to create obligation all right because if you want a 100% reliable dog you your training system requires both motivation and obligation all right A lot of people like to believe that they can just motivate their dog to listen and if they give them enough hot dogs that they'll always recall and they'll always heal with you and that's just not true okay dogs are creatures of impulse and instinct who have their own desires and their own motivations right it's it's very it'd be very arrogant to think that if you uh trained your dog these behaviors if you taught them these behaviors and if you gave them a profuse amount of hot dogs that they are going to listen to you all the time always right that would be an very arrogant belief in reality if you want 100% reliability your training program requires both motivation and obligation motivation is when the dog wants to do the thing they want to work they want to obtain the reward obligation is where the dog understands the concept of must right this is where you have a dog who's in offleash heel there's a there's a ball that runs right in front of him there's a dog over there there's a little kid running around there's a squirrel that runs right across the street and the dog stays in the heel because they understand they must even though they would like to go chase that squirrel and they would like to go get that ball and they would like to go they understand that they must heal right and that's different that's totally different and so that's why we use pressure in training it's to create obligation in certain behaviors okay and don't worry you're going to learn how to do all that throughout the training program all right so let's go back to this graph here pressure what is pressure pressure can be many things it can be environmental pressure spatial pressure physic physical pressure whatever it is pressure is stress okay and pressure is objective let me explain if you add this callar on a dog and you are giving a correction let's say this was your level of correction that level of pressure is objective you could measure this right you could repeat this it's objective all right pressure is objective now here's where things get interesting with dogs the perception of that pressure of that same pressure is subjective depending on the dog depending on the environment depending on the level of competing motivator right it's subjective all right so if you were to graph this out it would look something like this and there exists a line for every dog and this line is where the perception of that pressure goes from negative reinforcement to positive punishment all right and in the training program as we go through the training you are going to be teaching behaviors using positive reinforcement and you're going to be proofing behaviors using negative reinforcement right negative reinforcement is where you teach the dog the concept of must that's where you have the dog in a heel off leash no tools no rewards and a squirrel runs right in front of you and your dog keeps on healing because they understand they must heal right that's negative reinforcement you're going to be using negative reinforcement in the training to build reliability in the behaviors okay positive punishment you're going to be using positive punishment in the training to punish undesirable behaviors maybe your dog is barking at other dogs your dog is lunging at bikers your dog is chasing cars your dog is jumping up on the counter jumping up on people whatever it is you're going to be using positive punishment to punish undesirable behaviors right and so this is pressure this is the perception of pressure right this graph is really important and I hope you're staying with me here because I'm going to explain why so the reason why I had to lay all this out is because now I can show you how we use this to our advantage in training and why selecting your tools that you use is very important all right so since we understand our objective our objective is to train our dog to be off leash obedient 100% of the time on leash or off leash we are going to require pressure we're going to have to be able to get this this whole scope with the dog that we have in front of us right so let's break down tool by tools Okay the reason why you see a lot of trainers use tools like the prong caller the reason why you seen trainers use tools like the e-collar is because these tools give you you the most leverage they have the most scope they have the most range okay with a tool like a prong caller you can apply very very low levels of negative reinforcement like like barely barely any pressure on there right you can get this range and you can also at the same time create extreme levels of pressure right so it has a huge range to it now this is also why prong callers get a bad rap a lot of the times right it's because people who don't know what they're doing who don't have a plan who don't know how to train who don't know how to communicate with the dog they get a tool like this and that's a whole lot of Leverage to give to someone who doesn't know what they're doing it's also why e- callers get a bad repap right e-c callers again have a huge amount of range and if you don't know what you're doing you can create some problems for you and your dog right so that's why we use prom calls because they have have a huge range now why don't we use some other tools right let's go ahead and list a few harnesses for example are designed to what to disperse pressure it's what they were intended for right they're designed to disperse pressure evenly across the body and so that's why pareses you can provide you can obviously create very low levels of negative reinforcement very like annoying types of pressure but it can only reach to like here right you're never going to be able to get to these punishment levels on something like a harness right because it's simply not what the tool was designed for it was designed to disperse pressure right which makes it a good tool for something else but not for creating reliability in behaviors right so that's that's that would be like a harness maybe it would come to like here maybe something like a flat collar all right a flat collar might be a step up from a harness maybe you can reach something like something like here right something like there right for a lot of dogs now for some dogs you could absolutely uh reach positive punishment levels on a flat collar right if your dog is very sensitive to pressure physical pressure you could absolutely reach positive punishment levels but for the majority of dogs out there for you watching this video probably your dog probably doesn't give a about the flat colar right they'll probably just choke themselves out on it all day long on the walk they'll pull into it like nobody's business they they're blowing up at someone you go to correct them they don't care right like they just don't care for most dogs the they're so desensitized to the flat collar that the most you could reach is just like moderate levels of negative reinforcement for most dogs right now if we take this a step up maybe we have something like a slip lead okay a slip lead maybe we got like a like a rope slip lead right something like that okay well then you might be able to get somewhere like here or maybe for some dogs over here right it all depends on the dog depends on the Computing motivated depends on the environment but maybe you might be able able to achieve more levels of of pressure right so now that tool gives you a bit more scope right maybe you have a tool like a choke chain for example which is basically a slip lead it's just metal right there you might be able to reach even higher levels of pressure right so that that tool gives you a bit more scope right and you can kind of see where I'm getting at here right now here's an important point is how your dog perceives that pressure is dependent on many variables and I listed some of those variables earlier but just to recap here right you might have noticed that if you're walking your dog say on a slip lead for example right you may have been doing let's say you're doing loose leash walking with a slip lead right and you may have noticed that around your neighborhood right around low distractions they do pretty good they do pretty good like they're very responsive to the pressure you can negatively reinforce behaviors very well you can positively punish behaviors if you if necessary right your dog is very like receptive to this type of of pressure in this environment that's the key but when you go out to new environments or you up the level of competing motivators right you go out to a very busy place it's new there's tons of stuff around tons of smells you might notice that that same level of pressure that you're using to for whatever to negatively reinforce behaviors or to positively punish behaviors all of a sudden doesn't work anymore right why because your dog's tolerance for pressure your dog's threshold for pressure just increased right their line just went over here now in this new environment you see what I'm saying and so having a tool that can that has a lot of scope is extremely useful when you're trying to create reliability in behaviors because the the worst thing you could do if you're trying to create reliability right is you teach the dog that um you teach the dog that you have to be reliable around our neighborhood but around new environments or new situations or high distractions all of a sudden there there is no reliability and you don't have to listen right so that's why having a tool that has a lot of scope is very important in achieving our goal okay so that's why we use a prong caller is because it has the most scope out of the other tools okay and of course there are right ways to use a prong caller there are wrong ways to use a prong caller and we'll get into those as we go through the training and in terms of like how to actually negatively reinforce behaviors how to positively punish behaviors we get into that in the training program okay but for now I just wanted to explain why we use it instead of other tools so I hope this makes sense all right so that's why we use prong callers let's go ahead and check that off the list so now let's talk about how prong callers work so when you get your prong caller in the mail or you order it you pick it up from the store I want you to take a look at it and just play around with it right you'll notice that these end points are actually very blunt a common misconception is people think that these are sharp that they're going to like puncture the skin of the dog and that's not true these are very these are very blunt points right you can pull very hard on it and it's uncomfortable but it's not painful right when you once you release the pressure you're not in pain right and that's because these are very blunt so when you get it take a look at it right you'll notice a few different things you notice you have this center plate right this is what goes over your dog's throat area you notice you have all of these individual links you notice you have these end plates here attached to this Martingale chain style thing at the back this is what your leash attaches to all right so there're all these components and I want you to play around with it and get familiar with it okay so when you get yours I want you to practice taking it on and off these two end plates here that are attached to the chain these two end plates are attached to links and these are special links that are different from all of the other links right you can see that this link here right this link here is different from all of the other ones and this link is what you use to take the collar on and off right so let me show you how to do that real quick so to take your collar on and off you're going to locate the end plate grab that link and here's what I usually do I'll slide the link out like this until it's just barely there and you notice all you have to do is just grab it and pinch super easy all right now you just have that link there and then you have your opening and closing link here okay here we go again just for you to see you got your link you just put it in pinch it in boom now it's in all right same with the other side same deal okay you've got your link kind of pop it out all you have to do is pinch boom right pops right out to put it back in put it in pinch boom now it's back in and you see how everything's aligned right the mistake I see people make is like they'll do all types of crazy things like one link is in like one link is like this way and it's like what what is going on here right the the prongs should go right into where they fit boom just like that right they should all be facing same direction it looks very clean all right so that's how they work they essentially they go on your dog when your dog is just wearing it normally it's just resting on their skin right it's just it's nonactive then when you make pressure it creates discomfort that disperses the pressure evenly around the dog's neck so for example instead of something like a flat collar where when you make pressure all of the pressure just boom right on their throat area instead of that or instead of a slip lead where their pressure is wrapped around their neck and it cuts off oxygen to their throat instead of that the pressure is just evenly dispersed around their neck onto the blunt prong around their neck right so that's how the pressure works and then once you release that pressure it releases right you make pressure it cinches you release it it releases all right so that's how the collar works all right so now let's talk about what brand and what size you should buy all right so there's really only one brand you should buy and that brand is Herm Springer all right Herm Springer is a company made in Germany that makes the most highquality prong cers okay don't get don't cheap out don't get one of like some collar off Amazon don't get some one from Petco all right just don't do it order a legit Herm Springer prong CER all right and just a warning don't order these on Amazon for whatever reason okay people are selling fakes on Amazon all right and they're just not the same and you can notice you can notice the difference all right I've ordered a lot of different colors and I'll have a link to one down below from a company that I like that's online that ships everywhere and I'll just link them down below okay um you can also get these at like a pet retailer right so if you have like a local pet store or something near you then you can get a Herm Springer from there right just make sure it's actually Herm Springer okay so now that's what brand you should get the next thing is what size should you buy okay so don't follow the size guides on their website or whatever okay they're going to recommend you get the most gigantic collar of all time all right don't do that here's my size guide for dogs under 80 lb get a 2.25 mm Herm Springer that's this size it's the smallest size that they have okay and I really I prefer using the 2.25 whenever I can just because of the I just like the way it feels better right so the other ones can get a little bit chunky like you'll see they're they're pretty chunky and I like the small ones better so there are two variations here right or there are a few variations actually so the first one and the most common one is the Chrome plated collar right this is the one you'll see most often right it says steel Chrome plated I don't know if you can see that but it says steel Chrome plated and this is the most common type of collar right so if you get can get your hands on this that's totally fine okay now if you want to take it a step up if you have access to it or if you can order these online then I would recommend getting the stainless steel variation because the stainless steel is just going to last longer it's more resilient to R and is higher quality it'll also um if your dog has a nickel allergy there's Nickel in the Chrome plated ones uh this one is just stainless deal so it's better for dogs who have metal allergies right uh if your dog also if your dog has allergies to just everything or they're got a lot of metal allergies going on they have these kurgan ones that are made for those types of dogs right they're rose gold so kind of pretty they also make um black stainless steel ones which are super sexy if you have a black dog and so that's what you should get if you have a dog that's under 80 lbs the 2.25 mm Herm Springer prong col and I'll have links to some down below now dogs over 80 lb you should get the 3.0 or the 3.2 mm Herm Springer right and this is what this boy looks like all right it's a different different type of thing right this is real chunky it's real heavy it's real it's just it's just a chunky boy okay so I only like using these for dogs who are you know real big beefy dogs okay the large extra large type of dogs all right so that's what I would recommend using for those types of dogs now if your dog has a thick neck all right if you've got like a you know you got like a Frenchie okay they've got that thick neck around then you might want to get some additional links okay so these come with just a standard amount of links and you you may if your dog has a thick neck you may need some additional links and so I'll have a link to where you can just buy additional links but it basically just looks like this they're just some additional links right and all you do when you get your collar is you're just going to you know take it apart right so it's nice and open and you're just going to put those links in and then close it again right so how you resize these collar is you just take take links in and out that's about it right for most dogs you're going to be fine with just the links that they provide but if your dog has a super thick neck you'll want additional links okay so that covers what brand and what size you should buy in terms of cers all right so how should your collar fit how do you get proper fitting so your collar should fit your dog snug right it should be behind the ears and above the throat behind the ears above their throat so it sits high on your dog's neck all right so here's how it should fit I think this collar might be a perfect fit yes okay so this collar is a perfect fit on me all right you see how like how it's sitting on my neck and it's resing there and it's not like it's not hanging like a necklace and at the same time it's not digging into my skin when I'm not like doing it when you're not making pressure on it right it's just sitting there it's just resting and that's it that's how it should fit for your dog all right show you fit snug snug like a watch all right like how does your watch fit when you shake your wrist around your watch isn't flopping all over the place but at the same time it's not cutting off circulation to your hand right it's just snug it's on there right that's how it should fit okay so if it's too loose go ahead and pop a link out and then try it again if it's too tight put a link in and then tighten it up and just get a feel for it okay give you a tip if you're like if you're like H I don't know if my collar is too tight or too loose right when you put it on your dog dog's neck you shouldn't be able to to like you should be able to like gently just like lift up a prong like maybe get get one finger under there and like you can kind of feel the Gap right so it shouldn't be like super loose or anything like a flat collar for example like you shouldn't be able to get like your whole hand underneath underneath the collar when your dog is wearing it right it should be pretty snug like it just it just sits on there it's just resting right on their skin it's not digging into their skin it's just resting there right and then when you make pressure now it's activated okay so it should fit snug behind the ears above the throat if you're collar is hanging if there's like all of this all of this room and it's like looking like a necklace on your dog it's way too loose okay most often times people have their collars too loose all right most of the time it's too loose all right now so yeah just a little tip for you guys there right if if you're like using the collar and you're walking walk around doing stuff with your dog and you notice like the collar is like falling down their neck and it's like moving down like it's all like twisted up and it's just like rotating around their neck it's probably too loose you could probably take out a link right now use common sense here right obviously don't do it if it's like super tight like choking up on your dog and your dog is just like holy right like don't do that okay so some common sense here but it should fit snug like a watch behind the ears above the throat so let me go ahead and show you an example with an actual dog all right guys so here we're going to be introducing the prong caller to our 12-year-old senior dog Fernie here I got some treats with me and I got the collar so what I'm going to do first just to see if it fits is I'm just going to step on his Leaf so he can't move and I'm going to come underneath his head and around and you can see here how high I am on the dog's head right let me get his his ears out the way um you can see that I want it fitting high right behind the ears above the throat right so you can see here is two ears and it's right behind them and you can see this is too big right far too big you can see how much extra room that would be right I'll go ahead and attach it just so you can see and you can see look at that that's just way too big for him okay so how you want the prong colar to fit is you want it to be snug like a watch you see my watch right now if I move it around like this there's a little bit of room but it's not flopping around all over the place it's tight on there right it's secure and and at the same time it's not cutting off circulation to my hands right so it's a it's a snug fit and that's how you want it snug but not tight so let's go ahead and take out another couple prongs here I'm going to pop one more off on each side and we'll see how this does okay so attach this go and take one off on the other side that way it's even and that base plate can stay in the middle okay so now I've got four popped out in total and let's go ahead and see how this fits right so I'm going to slide it underneath his head make sure we get his ears out the way want high in the neck behind the ears and let's see here so this is how a lot of people would like their prongs to fit right um because they kind of feel bad when it's tight uh but you can see here that there is just far too much room I can literally fit like any of my fingers under here even though I've taken out four prongs and it's just not as tight as it needs to be if this was on him uh we could train with this we could make it work but it's not going to be as effective and it's going to be dangling around and kind of hanging like a medallion okay so we're going to take out one more okay so now we've taken out five in total and this should give us the fit that we need uh for Fern here all right so let's go ahead and put this on him all right so one more time going to come high on the head behind the ears and there we go that's a good fit okay let's get his ears out the way so you can see and it's kind of hard because he has a lot of fur around his his ear area his neck area uh but you can see how this fits right see here's his ears it fits high on the neck right behind the ears above the throat so his flat collar is hanging way down here and you can see this is it's tight just like my watch right there's not a lot of room in between uh it's resting on there comfortably when it's not engaged but when it does engage um you can see that it just contracts nicely over here right you can see these chains are freeing are moving freely and that's what you want to see right nothing's twisted up nothing's Tangled everything looks good you want to check make sure everything's aligned and this looks good so this is a properly fitted prong collar on Fernie here all right so we had to take out about five links in total for this small dog and again guys he's never had this on but he seems to be like relatively comfortable he's kind of shaking around like oh my gosh you know what the heck is this and before you put this on your dog you want to make sure you build a positive association with it right you show them it you give them treats you put it on you take it off you give them treats this whole thing but for the purpose of this video I just kind of put it on him just to show you uh everything that works so if you zoom in here uh you can see on the collar that there are two rings you got this big ring down here on the bottom and then on the top you have a small ring the small ring up top is called the live ring okay the live ring is what you're going to attach your leash to right so that sits on the top and you can see it moves freely like this it has a swivel on it so when you pull the leash collar contracts the bottom ring here is called the dead ring all right so if you attached your leash to both Clips um then there would be no Contracting action right with the collar but we always like using the live ring and we use the dead ring to back up the collar and I'll show you what this looks like now so if you have a carabiner of sorts right if you have a carabiner uh let's see where is the Carabiner as it around here U let's see here let's try to find our pink carabiner somewhere we had one around somewhere I'm not exactly sure what it is right now but your foot I'll go ahead and show you your foot oh yep here it is pink career ring from it all right so this is this is a big Carabiner you don't have to use one this big obviously I'll have links to some but this is just what we had lying around so how you're going to do this is you attach the carabiner to the dead ring right which is the big ring on the bottom of the prong and then you would attach the carabiner to the flat collar right so just like that and boom just like that now the collar is secure so even if this came out hopefully it it never does but if if it did come out which they can uh your dog is secure right the leash disconnect the collar falls apart or whatever and boom you've got a backup right your leash is connected to this flat collar through the car unit so you you'd be good to go all right so that's how you back up the collar um and that's what we use the dead ring for but for the majority of the time uh the leash is just going to be connected to the live ring the collar which is the top small one all right so that's how we fit the prong collar properly uh even on a senior dog just like this right you want it nice and snug like a watch right behind their ears above their throat so now let's talk about the preconditioning phase for the Coller and this isn't required per se for every dog but you know it's it's good to do this just in case because for some dogs this is very beneficial some dogs are very skeptical or suspicious of new things coming on to them right some of you might be able to relate to this right you you put something new on your dog and your dog is like oh gosh it's the end of the world right I can't move move and all this stuff right so some dogs are very sensitive to this other dogs aren't but doing this it it'll never hurt anyone okay so preconditioning how do you do it preconditioning in simple terms all you're doing is You're Building or creating a positive association with the prong callar all right monos what is a positive Association a positive Association is when you attach good things good outcomes to some stimulus right so let me give you an example of positive associations your dog probably has okay let's say um you you leave you leave them at home while you're at work right when you pull up in your driveway and your dog hears the garage door opening and they hear you know all of that they hear your car coming in then they're probably getting excited right they're like oh my gosh my people are home right why because that stimulus of those those sounds those noises have led in the past to that reinfor forcement event which is you coming home and interacting with them and all of that stuff right so that stimulus in your dog's mind they have a POS association with that okay another example let's say um you are uh for some dogs when you grab the leash like when you grab the leash and you're about to go on a walk right when you grab the leash your dog starts to get all excited ooh right I'm excited I'm excited why because your dog has learned that when you do this thing when this stimulus happens when you grab the leash in this way it means you're going out for a walk you're going to go play together and all that stuff right so your dog has a positive association with that stimulus um when you put on your treat pouch your dog gets all excited right CU they're like oh okay now we're going to work and I'm going to get these fancy treats all of that stuff right positive associations so with the prong callar what we can do is we can create a positive Association how do we do that right all we have to do is very simple we have to carefully reward certain behaviors that we're looking for right so in the beginning we might just present this to the dog when they go and engage with it maybe their nose touches it chip reward with food right and then they go away they're like whoa that was weird and then they do it again they engage with it chip reward there we go right we shake it a little bit kind of a strange noise right you get like oh what is that they engage with it chip reward right and you can see how this kind of plays out we open open it a little bit we might put it underneath their neck CH reward we might put it up to their ear CH reward right and now all of a sudden your dog is learning what that this collar means good things means good things are going to happen Okay so that's building a positive Association and you can just do this incrementally right put it on your dog you can even right once you build up to it you can even put this around your dog's neck CH and then reward right take it off put it on CH reward right and your dog starts to learn that oh this caller leads to good things right whenever I hear this caller whenever I hear this sound whenever I see it good things are about to happen right so that's how you build a positive association with the prong callar now let me show you an example with an actual dog good boy buddy good boy good all right he likes this ch chip chip chip chip chip all right so trip is the marker mhm uh and whenever he hears that he knows he's getting paid with food CH the reason why I'm doing this and taking it slow is because this is weird it's metal and it's like loud it's just weird so we have to make sure that you know he's cool with it CH good boy good boy buddy chip good CH good boy very good boy and here I'm going to kind of pretend to put it on take it off chip chip CH good boy that's a good boy CH good job good good good boy chip chip good good boy buddy all right now we'll go ahead and put it on and we'll see if this fits or not all right you want to go ahead and grab his his harness just like right here just like grab it right here just so he doesn't move okay CH good and then I'm going to put it on and see if it's the right size and then we'll adjust from there chip good I think this size will work okay remove that be per what's that remove this will be perfect uh which one the flat colar oh the flat collar oh the flat color is just fine he can he can he can keep it on CH good boy good job good job yeah all right so now that we've covered the preconditioning phase now let's talk about the active conditioning phase this is where you actually put the collar on the dog and you start using it all right so you're going to put this on your dog at this point you should already have good fitment your dog should already have a posit postive association with the collar now what you're going to do is you're going to start the active conditioning process all right so what you're going to do is you're going to go out into a low distraction environment maybe your driveway maybe an empty familiar Park maybe a a parking garage if you live in an apartment right some some low distraction area where there's no competing motivators around all right so what you're going to do here is you're going to have the prong collar on the dog you're going to have the leash attached to the prong collar of course and you're going to have some food with you and what you're going to do is you're going to teach the dog how to turn off this pressure productively all right you're going to teach them how to turn it off you're going to teach them how to win all right this is going to become a little bit of a game all right so what you're going to do is with your dog you're going to make directional pressure on the leash directional all right so you're going to give them a direction if your dog is facing that way you might make directional pressure with with the leash this way okay and what you're going to do is you're just going to make very very light pressure on the Le emphasis on light okay don't be dragging your dog around don't be pulling them in a direction I just want you to to to activate that collar just barely just barely gently okay very gentle your dog feels it they perceive it they feel it and you're going to let them decide what to do okay for most dogs what they're going to do dogs have something in them called opposition reflex so when they feel pressure One Way their instinct is just to go the opposite direction opposition reflex is to bra against the pressure right if someone came up behind you and was slowly pushing you forward your instinct is to lean backwards it's to fight that pressure right that's your that's opposition reflex for your dogs when they feel that pressure on their leash their instinct is to go the other way okay so what we need to do is we need to teach them the opposite how to turn off the pressure how to win all right so when you're making that light gentle pressure on the leash just wait let your dog feel it let them think and what you'll see is if you hold out long enough right if your dog just stands there maybe they're just standing maybe you make a little bit more press just a little bit little bit more pressure towards you what you'll notice at some point is your dog will give into it right they'll go from bracing against it their feet are planted and then they give into it and right when they give into it like that right they feel the pressure they feel it they feel it it's coming that way they're going to give into it that's where you chip and then you release the pressure and you reward with food right you're teaching the dog that when they feel that pressure the solution to it is to give into it give into the pressure right that's how they obtain the reward that's how the pressure turns off that's how they win right and you can make this pretty fun you can make this exciting you can make quick pressure they give into it CH yeah good boy buddy right and then you're reward and so that's the active conditioning it's directional pressure on the lease very light then you release Mark and reward with food okay so now let me go ahead and show you some examples with real dogs all right guys so we're going to begin the prong caller conditioning phase with Fernie here ferie 12 month 12-year-old senior dog you can see he's on the flat collar right now he's got no problem pulling into this hard you know he's been pulling into this for most of his life and so the reason why we want to switch in the prong collar is because it's something new okay it's going to be very difficult to train him on the flat collar cuz he's so desensitized to the pressure so we're going to switch him to something new right something unfamiliar that he's not used to you can see how comfortable he is with this right it doesn't even face in one bit so we're going to go ahead and start the prong colar conditioning phase with Fernie here and I'll walk you through the entire step entire step-by-step process so we already started the fitment inside and all that so now we're going to go ahead and switch them over to the live ring and then we're going to go ahead and begin the training so I have some treats with me if he takes that if he doesn't not a big deal I'll show you what to do if your dog doesn't take treats all right so let's go ahead and switch this over and the live ring just by the way guys is the top ring right it's the top small ring right on the collar so this small one right here with a swivel that's the one you're going to attach yourself to right everything's good chains are flowing good uh nothing's tangled up so now he's on the collar I'm going to let him know what he has on you feel that buddy yeah yeah feel that okay so now I'm going to introduce him to the concept of releasing the pressure so dogs have this thing built into him guys all animals do called opposition reflex so when he feels pressure his instinct is to brace into it right brace fight against it it's the same with you right if I came up behind you and like pushed you tried to push you forward your instinct is just kind of brace back into it right it's very unnatural for an animal to just give into the pressure so we have to teach him how to do that okay so here you got the collar on I got treats ready here and I'm going to apply a little bit of pressure good good good boy good job buddy okay he hasn't really made a good one yet so I'm going to wait here CH good good boy good good job buddy okay so he may or may not take treats outside I don't know he's not the craziest food drive dog he kind of just he just kind of half laps at it you know so here I'm going to apply some pressure chip good boy good job and that's all I want to see I want to see see that when I apply steady pressure on the leash and it's light guys I'm not pulling the dog in any way I'm not popping the dog of any sort I'm just applying gentle pressure directionally and once the dog gives into the pressure I'm marking and I'm rewarding okay okay and here I'll just kind of move around a little bit for any let him drift away do his thing here I'll apply pressure good boy good job buddy good good job okay all right so we're just moving him around guys and I'm we're getting him in the habit we're teaching him how to turn off the pressure good boy good job good pressure CH good good boy all right so we're just conditioning it right guys we're changing his perception of the pressure in the past right he feels the pressure and his instinct is to fight against it to get whatever he wants to get and now we're teaching him the opposite that if you give into the pressure you get something good right you get some string cheese CH good boy good job and again if we were doing this on a flat collar it would be extremely difficult cuz he's 12 years old and he's super desensitized to the flat collar right the prong collar gives you leverage chip good good boy okay and now let's talk about what you would do if your dog didn't take treats okay so imagine you're outside and you're doing this same exact thing where you have a low food drive dog doesn't take treats no big deal what you're going to do is just apply pressure good boy good job buddy and then you can praise the dog once they give into it okay pressure good good good job buddy and you can even give the dog some praise in between right some affection and whatever okay so that's what you would do if you had a low food food drive dog who wasn't taking treats during the conditioning phase not a big deal right just keep moving them around get him in the habit of turning off the pressure what you want to see is that when you apply pressure on the leash the dog doesn't have an aversion to the pressure right they deal with it in a productive way cuz remember when you apply pressure you're creating stress and so if your dog has never learned or been exposed to stress and controlled environments they might have a complete panic attack right and I'll show you clips of dogs who have had that in the conditioning phase um but here let's just move them around a little bit more good CH good boy good job very good all right and that's it guys it's really that simple you just want to get out and apply a controlled amount of pressure and then you want to see that the dog good boy good job has a productive response to the pressure meaning that give right into it and come toward your direction okay so that's what you want to see in the prong collar conditioning all right guys now we're going to start the conditioning phase with the collar um we just clipped it on he's never felted before so it's going to be very strange for him so we just want to make sure he knows the gear he has on right now right we don't want him to kind of just freak out and smack the end of the leash right so we just want to teach him what that means and right off the bat I'm going to apply pressure and then teach him how to turn it off CH good boy good boy all right so I don't want him to fail right now I just want to apply pressure if he fights it like this do not give into it pressure good boy what he makes that decision to turn and give into it reward that pressure CH good boy okayy there he's still kind of throwing a fit but at least he gave into it CH good all right there you saw he made that decision choke on the cheese CH good all right so you're just applying steady pressure it's not hard you're not pulling the leash you're just applying the pressure and then waiting until the dog responds in a productive way so in the beginning when I clipped on the when I clipped on the collar and applied the first pressure CH good good all right so pressure creates stress and this dog does not know how to cope with stress productively so you saw I'm like flailing around and kind of freaking it out and you know having a panic attack essentially because he doesn't know how to cope with stress CH and so right now what we're doing is we're teaching him how to cope with stress in a productive way this does a lot of things want to add structure CH good it builds his confidence it builds his confidence in you CH and it builds obligation in the training CH good good boy that's a good boy all right because now what we're teaching him how to do is we're teaching him how to be a winner okay so we're creating the stress CH good and he figures out how to win the game good boy good boy buddy yeah oh and he's jumping too we won't worry about that right now we'll fix that later good chip good chip good good chip good all right so we're just working him around here just we're still in the conditioning phase guys right we're just teaching him how to turn off the pressure when he feels it good I want him to come right to me this is important to teach before we start loose leash walking because dogs all animals really CH have an opposition reflex so if I came up to you and tried to push you in the back you would lean backwards right you would resist the pressure CH good dogs are the same way if you pull back on the leash their natural reflex is to pull harder right to fight that pressure so we have to teach him the opposite we need to teach him that CH if he gives into the pressure he gets rewarded chip good just just walking him around pressure CH good teach him how to be a winner good boy chip good good job buddy that's my good boy that's a good boy now if your dog isn't food motivated you would use praise good good boy all right I didn't use food that time I'll show to you again good good boy buddy good job yeah good job buddy that's a good boy that's a good boy yes right so yeah good good job so there I didn't want to correct him cuz I didn't want to apply too much pressure too soon yeah that's my good boy good job buddy all right so now at this point I would consider this dog conditioned because when he feels the pressure he gives into it and so now what I have to do is I have to condition her to this okay so I have to teach her what it means and how to turn it off and all that okay I can't just put it on and start like training with it you know so I'm going to apply a little bit of pressure and she's going to be like I don't know what to do with that I don't know what to do and she's going to kind of fight it right so just wait I'm going to maintain the pressure and she's going to freak out that's okay and right now what's important is I can't give into this because if I do she's going to learn that when she feels pressure all she has to do is freak out and the pressure turns off okay so right now the pressure is creating stress that dog right there is stress she doesn't know how to cope with stress so we have to teach her how to cope with stress in the training okay it's right here I'm just applying pressure and she's fighting it it's okay it's okay don't give in and you're going to take the leash after she might do the same thing to you right CH good good girl right that's very very very important um that you don't give into it in that moment it's kind of like a I don't know if you had a a kid and you told them to do something go clean your room and they threw a tantrum if you give into it it's going to happen every single time right and you accidentally taught your dog the way to release the pressure is to freak out and do all that okay so she's acting like she's dying and she's you know freaking out about it but she'll be just fine she'll be just fine CH good and once she learns how like oh I get it I just have to come towards you CH and the pressure turns off and I get paid like you know like it's it's a no-brainer you know CH good so you see how light that was right I'm applying like barely any pressure I'm not pulling her I'm not like popping it just barely any pressure okay CH good right when she gives into it I'm chirping and then rewarding all right so here she's coming towards you I'm going to apply light pressure CH good see how light that is good girl ready light pressure chip good good girl wow wow wow wow good girl okay so I'm apply light pressure CH good that's a good girl good okay and light pressure chip wow you see how light that is and she's responding to it right this is what we want CH good girl okay so so what I'm looking for right now is just looking that she understands the pressure she knows how to turn it off okay and what I should be able to do is apply barely any pressure like this and she just turns and comes towards it okay so this tells me she has a productive response to it she gets it she's no longer like trying to fight it and freak out have a panic attack okay and this this does a couple things in the Practical terms now she understands the collar we can start training with it but in the macro right in The Meta skills that we're trying to accomplish here is we're teaching her how to cope with stress and that builds her confidence that builds her confidence in you too CH cuz now when she's encountered stress in the environment and all that she already has like she's already dealt with it we've put stress on her in the training okay so I'll wait until she kind of checks out a little bit CH good good girl very good light pressure CH good wow what a good girl what a good girl good a good girl all right so now that we've covered the entire plan and we've covered the whole video now hopefully at this point you understand exactly what you need to do to go out and start using the prong callar with your dog and in the training all right just a warning here just because you condition your dog to the prong collar doesn't mean that they're all of a sudden now trained it just means that now you can use this tool in your training now you can use this tool to train loose leash walking you can use this tool to train the recall but this doesn't mean that the caller does the training for you right it doesn't mean that now all of a sudden you can go out and your dog just walks on a loose leash magically like you still have to train loose leash walking you still have to train the recall train the healing the collar isn't just this magical device that does all the training for you right you still have to do the training all right so that's it for this video hopefully this was helpful

Channel: Hamilton Dog Training

Views: 68,360

Keywords: dog training, dog trainer, hamilton dog training, balanced dog trainer, balanced dog training

Id: D2bL5vYKjeQ

Length: 55min 59sec (3359 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 19 2023