I assume some of you have seen his videos. He really makes a good case for a prong collar use.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Nf0bA9sudM

Thoughts?

He does indeed make a great case for prong collars, with reasons, defense against nay sayers, and safety and proper use in mind.

I've seen many places that 6 months is usually the age at which people will start using them. Our girl is 3 months and often pulls out ahead of us. We are starting to get into the habit of holding her leash down by our side with one hand to keep her at heal, but its tough. Any suggestions to other tools or methods prior to the 6 month date for a prong collar?

Heeling is one of the most unnatural things we ask of dogs. It is never not - tough.  

If you're having success already,  keep it up. So long as your method is nothing like how you get her out from under a chair.

My suggestion is to teach loose lead walking, not the heel. there is no reason to teach a dog to heel unless you plan on showing them in obedience. In which case you need it to perform a task. Even when I showed some of my past dogs in obedience, the heel was not used in our daily walks.

The way I have been teaching my five month old pup, Zosia, how to walk on a loose lead is two ways: 1. Every time she gets to the end of the leash/the leash gets tense I immediately turn and walk the other direction or 2. I come to a complete stop. This takes time - there are times it takes an hour for us to walk around the block, but she is getting it pretty quickly. Usually the first few minutes is remembering time, but then she remembers. I bring treats with me and every time she is staying loose on the lead I say "Yes, Good walking!" and treat.

The turning the opposite direction forces her to pay attention to where I am going, coming to a stop until she relaxes teaches that she doesn't get to move forward until she can be calm and not pull.

I do not believe in using prong collars unless a professional shows you how to use them - or before every single method has been tried. You need patience over quick fixes.

I used Zosia's method with Ami...along with the prong collar. It worked great. It was Ami and prong or Ami and Amy in the ditch, face first. Without the prong, I could not have kept him.

That being said, Ami was a 63 pound, 1 yr old dog when I got him. We did not get prong for Archer until he was maybe 6-7 mos. old - again, same issue, when I took care of him, I was getting hurt.

We do not use the prong for us to apply correction, we let Ami or Archer and the collar be self-correcting - that is, no jerking, pulling, yanking on the collar, the dog does it himself. We do mitigate that by using a Roc bungie leash - the stretch allows the dog to get a hint that he is starting to pull.

zosia wrote:

My suggestion is to teach loose lead walking, not the heel. there is no reason to teach a dog to heel unless you plan on showing them in obedience. In which case you need it to perform a task. Even when I showed some of my past dogs in obedience, the heel was not used in our daily walks.

The way I have been teaching my five month old pup, Zosia, how to walk on a loose lead is two ways: 1. Every time she gets to the end of the leash/the leash gets tense I immediately turn and walk the other direction or 2. I come to a complete stop. This takes time - there are times it takes an hour for us to walk around the block, but she is getting it pretty quickly. Usually the first few minutes is remembering time, but then she remembers. I bring treats with me and every time she is staying loose on the lead I say "Yes, Good walking!" and treat.

The turning the opposite direction forces her to pay attention to where I am going, coming to a stop until she relaxes teaches that she doesn't get to move forward until she can be calm and not pull.

I do not believe in using prong collars unless a professional shows you how to use them - or before every single method has been tried. You need patience over quick fixes.

Heeling tightly represents the closest union of the dog and handler, and since a dog walking with her handler is motivated by two things, prey drive and group drive, it is in the handler's best interest to have a tight heel if she is to be in the closest sychronized walk with her dog possible.

There's only one reason outside of obedience competition.   There are more, as well.


Jeff Gellman is a professional, and he shows you how to use one in his videos.  

One could just as easily argue that successful heeling on a prong in fact takes more time and effort and work than settling for just a casual loose leash where the dog is tuned out from the handler--meaning, settling for that is a quick fix because it's, well, easier.

So I figured I'd post in a topic already addressing the prong collar, I didn't see one in particular about sizing. We got the Herm Sprenger 16 in. Medium 3 mm prong collar in the other day. Putting it on him looks right at first but as we walk it makes it's way down to his collar. If I remove one prong it's too tight, I have a hard time even pulling the clasps together :/ should I have ordered a different inch? I swear we measured his neck around and it was about 15 inches.

Hi Haley,

 can you post photos or a video of each of the two options, the more links/too loose and the less links/too tight?  You might be surprised at how "tight" a proper fit is, esspecially given the thick coat on a Husky.

On the "tight" setting, can you get your finger tip under one of the actual prongs (not the link itself)?   Is it fit right behind the ears/base of the jaw?  How's the action on the chain, meaning how does the chain move in and out of the round tabs?

A properly fit prong collar should not be sliding down the the base of the neck where the tag collar sits.

With my dog, he has a super thick, show-type of coat so it eventually displaces the position of the collar, but that's okay.

Check out my videos so you can see how it looks on my dog, just for comparison

https://youtu.be/Ss9ASoz6HWk

https://youtu.be/k-M0Ol5YelU

I think a 3mm should be the proper size for a Husky, it might just be you getting used to the fit and feel of it, as it will be much more snug or tight than a tag collar so that you can best have a pressure On/pressure Off converasation with your dog.

Keep in mind, fitting a prong collar is not about measuring the dog's neck and corresponding that to the measure of the circumference of the collar.  

A prong collar is not static, meaning it moves out and in, or its circumference changes as you use it.  

This is the action of the collar, how it moves out and in.  

It's not like sizing a tag collar or an e-collar, both of which are static, or they stay in place at a stable circumference.

A prong collar has a smaller circumference when pressure is On than when presure is Off, where it is larger.

Just a tip for sizing.

Oh Jeff, I didn't realize you had a youtube! Gonna go follow. (Also epic beard you got!)

Haha, thanks Ashleigh.  

It's for my training business...Youtube, not the beard.

Well from the first video of yours I almost feel like Klaus' is actually sitting in the right place, I thought it needed to be up a littler higher on the neck behind his ears. I'd say it sits an inch or two above his regular collar. When I take a prong out it's very hard to put on because of the tightness and doesn't move at all (besides the chain going in/out), I can get a finger under but I really have to wiggle it under there. He also seems uncomfortable with it that tight.

I will try to get some pictures/videos on here this weekend of the difference. However, I have to say with the couple walks we went on with it, there has a been a huge difference. Still gets pretty excited when seeing another dog though and will pull that's another reason I have a feeling it might be too loose with all of the prongs on...

Ok great, thanks. Pics or video would help..

It shouldn't feel like you need to stretch it to close it , but also the links shouldn't easily overlap when going to close it, either. I'd say the prong of one link should be just a hair short of the holes in the other link when around the neck, but not closed .

It will slide down some, so don't worry about that. With the thick coat we can never get an ideal fit, but they can still be very effective.

It's awesome that you're getting great results already. It feels awesome getting your dog more tuned in and responsive to you while walking , doesn't it??

Think of the prong as an information delivery tool. The best way to use it to deliver information that says

"I don't want you to do that" rather than "I didn't want you to do that".

Anticipation is the magic . Another dog is a trigger for your dog, so you have to deliver information to your dog before your dog delivers information to you.

It's best for anticipatory guidance. If a dog triggers your dog and escalates his arousal, you have to cap that escalation in advance to say "that response is no longer acceptable. Make another choice."

Then, guide him towards calmness and staying present with you.

That's the beauty of a prong collar.

The possibility of it being too tight aside, it's normal for them to have some discomfort at first while adjusting to the new sensation, especially for dogs with no history of having consequences for their misbehaving or checks on their impulses.

Yes it's amazing to actually enjoy walking him. There are two dogs we pass on our walk every day that run up to the fence and bark like crazy at us. Passing by both dogs he turned his head, I told him leave it with a little bit of pressure and though he would kind of glance at them, he did not pull. Usually he would be on his hind legs trying to get to them.

Perfect ! Well done.

Glancing is okay.

Targeting with stiff ears is not okay.

You're doing great. You can even drop the words and let your wrist and te collar do the talking for you.

Okay so I snapped some quick pictures of his prong collar before our walk yesterday. Getting him to sit still with it on is almost impossible because he is so excited.



This one here is with all of the prongs included on the collar. It sits barely above his regular collar. He still tries to pull a bit with it at this size.



This one here is with one prong removed, much tighter and a bit higher up on his neck. I'm able to squeeze one finger underneath but it just looks so tight and his fur looks horrible with it on this way.

I think the fit looks correct in the second photo. By the way, I love your ring!

Now I know what Jeff sounds like. Also nice videos.

I agree, the second photo looks correct. You probably need to pull the fur through behind the prong collar, towards the tag collar. Just lift the prong up with your non dominant hand and pull the fur through with your dominant hand. You wanna just feed it through and this will in turn make the collar fit better and not so cluttered with all the fur. This is shown in the Good Dog prong fitting video.

Elise....you know that's not me, right?

You are not the Jeff in the videos with Link?

zosia wrote:

My suggestion is to teach loose lead walking, not the heel. there is no reason to teach a dog to heel unless you plan on showing them in obedience. In which case you need it to perform a task. Even when I showed some of my past dogs in obedience, the heel was not used in our daily walks.

The way I have been teaching my five month old pup, Zosia, how to walk on a loose lead is two ways: 1. Every time she gets to the end of the leash/the leash gets tense I immediately turn and walk the other direction or 2. I come to a complete stop. This takes time - there are times it takes an hour for us to walk around the block, but she is getting it pretty quickly. Usually the first few minutes is remembering time, but then she remembers. I bring treats with me and every time she is staying loose on the lead I say "Yes, Good walking!" and treat.

The turning the opposite direction forces her to pay attention to where I am going, coming to a stop until she relaxes teaches that she doesn't get to move forward until she can be calm and not pull.

I do not believe in using prong collars unless a professional shows you how to use them - or before every single method has been tried. You need patience over quick fixes.

I completely agree with this I don't like having my dogs to heel. First off having four dogs at my heel would be obnoxious. And I honestly do not believe in any manner, just because you don't have your dog heel, that you don't have a close union with your dog? That logic doesn't make any sense to me. If anything with my dogs, I feel like mushing with them out in front and pulling and doing what they love, but at the same time being aware of me and following my commands, is the best union we ever have. There are all levels of obedience and its not simply going to be heeling vs not heeling.

So confused...

That is Jeff in the videos with Link. The very first video for the prong fit from K9 training isn't Jeff though.

Jeff, you're confusing Elise!