Pinch Collars?

[Ash]

What the heck are they? I'm sorry I'm incredibly naive, it sounds so cruel. A girl at another debate is actually debating how well they work. They seem cruel to me. She claims it doesn't hurt them. But hell if someone pinches me it hurts. Can someone please explain them to me a little bit?

[Guest Anonymous]

I have one for cody.. doesn't work at all he still pulls so i can't use it anymore.. even the trainers dont understand how he can still pull so hard on them..

[AllAmericanPUP]

I use one with Eli...works well with him..

It doesnt hurt, i tried it on myself.

[Aroura]

They are illegal in this country, if you get caught using one you get done for cruelty. I would never dream of putting one on any of my dogs - there are much better ways of training :wink:

[imported_Irena]

ok prong collars.
usialy i'm kinda against them, they are very strong training toll. but to the one who knows how to and if the collar was salected proparly for the dog according to his training, age and nerve stability there is no problem using him.
the prong collar working simmilar to the shoke collar, but except one thing: when you correct with the choke one the correction happens only in one area of the neck and when you correct with the prong one it all over the neck at the same time.
dont look down on haltys, i did that myself before. there are not so stuped as they looks. the halty is built up for very low nerved dogs ( or owners LOL ) who any correction can put in deffence or even hart the dog physicaly, or if your dog is very dominate or scared and will attack at any sighn of control over him or will atack as diffance if he finds the collar uncomfortable.
for that kind of a work you need a training tool that controols gentle but very firmly the head and the mouth of the dog. we train now a mixed australian shepherd dog who needs this kind of collar and he doing more than super great.
ohh and i almost forgot, the force in correction in halty between how you do it ant how your children can do it is very simmilar, giving it a strong plus because your dog will pay the same attantion to you as to your children when you both correcting him in the same way and power.
i for the matter love the choke collars and will prefer always to work with them 8)
and if sombody didnt understud my mattaer of speaking i can explane again

[DogPaddle]

I have tried a pinch/prong collar on the inside of my wrist - I pulled hard and also snapped it like a dog might lunging. It was uncomfortable. The snap was the worst but it left no marks (on the unfurry inside of my wrist) nor did it do any damage. I strongly feel that almost any dog on a prong/pinch requires no correction on the part of the handler - the collar does all the work and any poping or jerking is unnec.

As for the haltis - my dogs will do nearly anything to not wear a halti and if it is on Kavik will drag his face along the ground even if its cement to try to get it off, Zaphod will barrel roll and dig at it with his paws until he causes injury to his face. Some dogs are ok with them but some dogs aren't.

As for the prong - my boys come running when they hear me pick them up. It might be best not to use them on sensitive, submissive or dogs that have other issues. I also might be hesitant to use them on a dog with very little fur but they do have rubber tips to cover them if you want to soften them up a bit.

[ObedienceGrrl]

The thing with the pinch collars is that you do not snap them.

The dog pulls and self corrects......you do not do the work. The dog does.

They are not cruel. They are not inhumane. Someone that has a dog pulling on a flat buckle collar, IMO, is being much more inhumane to their dogs. Those dogs you can hear gasping and choking. And then they look at someone who is using a prong collar like they are ending the world for their dog.

:roll:

[rotten_two]

alright here is my take -- like it or not.

since so few people can actually understand the proper way to use the prong collar i do not allow them in class. most people can't grasp the concept of how/when they are to be used. for example i had one lady bring her swissie in on a prong and a flexi-lead (oh yes she did). as he pulled and pushed his way around the classroom she explained this is the only way she can "control" him. i said i see you're doing a bang up job there! :roll: personally i just don't like prongs.

i am actually a big proponent of the front clip harness if your issue is pulling. they work much like a gentle leader for control of the front end but dogs seems to adjust to them very quickly -- unlike the gentle leader.

in my experience (this doesn't necessarily apply to anyone here who uses them so don't go gettin all in a huff) when i see a dog on a prong collar it is usually an indication of a poorly/under trained dog. people start out with a flat buckle collar and the dog gets used to gagging and choking. then they move a step up to the choke collar and again their dog acclimates to the sound and nagging pull. next step prong collar. what really are these people teaching their dogs? to tolerate a tug on the neck? most people want the quick easy solution and they think it can be found here.

my feeling is that it is your job as a dog parent to teach your dog to walk nicely on leash (or whatever the behavior) and yes people it can be done with a simple flat buckle collar if you put in the time and snacks.

[imported_Irena]

rotten_two i think you forgot somthing very importent:
prong collars are the best answer in personal protection, Schh and other high training. in training dogs to work that kind of a work and we ( the kennel ) and other trainers we coworking with them preffer in high levels of obedians and protection to work with prongs. remmembring that our dogs are very high leveled in nerve stability and not responding to light correction. more to that when you working with personal protection dogs or terrorisim dogs ( this kind of dogs trained to attack at weaponry fire and attack only in porpoise to neutralize the denger ). these kind of animals are not for game or mistakes especialy when they are near people. so you will want to work with a toll very precise in his correction. remmember that that kind of dogs very concentrated in there task and i alredy heard of trainers that used electriacal collars just because nothing els helped ( and how much i loathe this collars :flop: )
anyway my point that any toll that was made and not all the one who using more serious tolls do it because they are a bad trainers, some of them do it because they have that kind of work or dogs that needs it. i can give there nema for furter questions about that kind of a work if you intrested.

[Lucky Chaos]

There may be other ways to train, I'd like to see any one of you that are against them hold on to and keep Chaos calm when she's after another dog. On the flat collar she chokes herself until she's out of breath and almost wheezing, with the prong she barely leans into it, no need to choke. With the prong on I can have her sit quietly, without it she's a growling bitch. Not very nice to look at.

Pinch collars, like any training tool can be abused. If used correctly they don't hurt. I put mine on my neck and gave myself a hard correction, it was a little uncomfortable, not unbearable by any means. The dog corrects itself when it lunges, if you do have to give a correction it can be given with a single finger, no need to yank on the collar for every correction.

Most people don't even know how to use these collars, I see them all the time sitting on the base of a dogs neck when they should be up behind the ears. When its at the top of the neck the correction you have to give is much softer.

Any training tool can be abused. One dog I knew developed an eye infection or something, because the gentle Leader she always worse was rubbing on her eye. If the dog hits the end of the leash hard enough with a GL its neck snaps to the side. Thats not what I want thanks. Choke collars can easily choke a dog if used improperly. Heck even flat collars can choke a dog! I was against prongs too, until I tried one. Slowly I will wean Chaos back onto the flat collar, but for now I'll stick with my "inhumane" collar thanks.

[imported_Irena]

out of topic but "Chaos " is the name i saved for my Cane Corso female that should arived soon 8)

[Malamum]

[b]Aroura wrote:[/b]

[quote]They are illegal in this country, if you get caught using one you get done for cruelty[/quote]

I'm sorry Aroura but that is just not true.

I use these collars on both my dogs and I am extremly happy with the results. I don't think it's cruel and neither do they. They love going for their walks and compete with each other for who gets their collar put on first.

I think it's quite narrow minded for people to think just because they don't want to or need to use one on their dog that anyone who does is cruel or hasn't trained their dog.

[rotten_two]

i certainly didn't say i think they are cruel (unless you count those instances where people misuse them) -- i merely said i don't like them and they are not allowed in my classes.

irena as far as schutzhund or protection training i will say you [b]can[/b] do it without the prong collar. i have a k9 cop trainee (malinois) who is doing quite well on his flat buckle collar! as a matter of fact the dog who will be retired (gsd), when the malinois is ready, was trained out of country using punitive measures & has given his handler quite a problem. so he came to us -- strictly positive methods in our training.

i think we have established that prongs are a matter of personal preferrence. we are pretty much all in violent agreement that most people (joe schmoe dog owner) are not mentally adept enough to use them correctly. we could argue all day the pros and cons and why we use or don't use them.

i guess the last thing i will say is that if you choose to use them you should be damn sure you use them correctly!

[xavierandrea]

I use the prong collars on all my dogs. 8)

[Lucky Chaos]

[quote]irena as far as schutzhund or protection training i will say you can do it without the prong collar. i have a k9 cop trainee (malinois) who is doing quite well on his flat buckle collar![/quote]

Wait till that dog decides he wants to do what he wants to do and "corrects" his handler with a bite. Malinois are EXTREMELY high drive (or the ones bred for working anyway) and trust me I would love to see one get a good title using pure positive. Haven't seen it yet, for a good reason. So if this dog can be trained with only positive, he's either low drive or one in a million. I know this breed pretty well.

[Guest Anonymous]

Rotten- i just saw the front clip harness at hte dog a thon and i'm ordering one for cody. i hope that will work becuase so far NOTHUING has worked with his outrageous behavior on a leash, prong, choke, halti, GL harness...

[Malamum]

The link newfiemom posted was great.

That is pretty much exactly the same info I was given when I bought my collars. We also spent quite a few hours with the trainer teaching us how to use it properly.

I have an extremely strong 50kg dog (i'm a bit under 60kg myself), who is dog aggressive. When walking, if we saw another dog (depeding upon how close it got to us) Indy would lunge against the leash and generally carry on like a lunatic.

On a flat collar he can pretty much pull me off my feet. Yes, he has been trained to walk on a flat collar and does so perfectly 99% of the time. It's for that other 1% of times when another dog gets too close that I can't take the risk of walking him on one.

I walked him on a halti or gl for about 2 years. Again 99% of the time he walked like an angel - another dog gets too close and he goes berserk. On the halti I have more leverage and much more control. He can't pull me off my feet but he still has a good try. I hated the thought of what that was doing to his neck and he was getting marks across his face because the halti would dig in so hard.

It was getting beyond a joke. Walks were not relaxing or fun. I spent the whole time with my eyes peeled for other dogs and spent most of our walks taking detours, crossing streets and not walking past certain houses as I knew they had a dog in the yard. I was that uptight about other dogs that I even crossed the road because of men carrying briefcases (from a distance I thought the cases were dogs) :roll:

Switch to a prong collar and the results were instantaneous! Within a day Indy learnt not to lunge on the collar. He did it once, and yeah it probably did hurt since he lunged hard but he's never done it again.

He learnt very quickly that I'm not correcting him or getting angry at him - his actions directly effect his level of comfort.

Walks are now so much more fun for both of us. If we see other dogs I don't have to get out of the vicinity in a hurry. He still can't be right on top of another dog but I can just move him to a sensible distance by veering off the path by a few metres and we can continue to walk past the other dog.

So if I am being cruel by making walks happier and safer, for me, my dog and any other people out walking their dogs, then lock me away.


Jess, if you are going to get collars for Sasha and Felony then I really do recommend spending the time and money and going to someone who can show you how to use them properly.

Even though I thought I new how to use them in theory, in practice having somone demonstrate and walk you through what to do really does make a difference.

Good luck and let us know how they work for you.

[Lokipups]

Malamum, on my training forum, the debate has been going around for a long time on whether or not prong and e-collars are banned from Australia (one of our long-time members lives there, and does use both collars, but had them shipped).
I was under the impression that you couldn't buy them there, but could order one and have it shipped to you, as long as it wasn't assembled. Is that correct, or have they lifted the ban :niewiem: ?

[JackieMaya]

I've never used a prong collar, but I don't have anything against them as long as they're used properly.

The haltis work great on my kids. They don't run to the end of the leash, so they've never had their necks cranked.

I figure whatever works the best for each individual dog and handler is the one you should use (IF used properly).

[Malamum]

[quote name='Lokipups']Malamum, on my training forum, the debate has been going around for a long time on whether or not prong and e-collars are banned from Australia (one of our long-time members lives there, and does use both collars, but had them shipped).
I was under the impression that you couldn't buy them there, but could order one and have it shipped to you, as long as it wasn't assembled. Is that correct, or have they lifted the ban :niewiem: ?[/quote]

Lokipups, my understanding is that Victoria is the only state in Australia where prong collars are illegal.

Aroura and I both live in New South Wales and they are not illegal here. There are some rules in what you can and can't do when importing them and you are right it's something about them coming in unassembled. But I'm pretty sure it's ok to buy them in NSW, from someone who has bought it into the country unassemled. It's then ok for someone to buy them from that person assembled.

I tried to do a google search to see if I could find something stating what the actual legislation is but I couldn't find anything. I'm not really sure where to look so my search was probably pretty ineffective. :-?

This argument goes around and around on an Australian forum I belong to as well, and as it goes with most forums everyone chimes in with what [i]they think [/i]is the legal status of the collars but I don't know how much is actual fact compared to heresay.

[gooeydog]

[quote name='Ash']What the heck are they? I'm sorry I'm incredibly naive, it sounds so cruel. A girl at another debate is actually debating how well they work. They seem cruel to me. She claims it doesn't hurt them. But h*** if someone pinches me it hurts. Can someone please explain them to me a little bit?[/quote]
Posted most of this just a couple days ago on a different forum, but I'd type the same thing out anyway, so saving myself some time :oops:

They are a tool. Just like Haltis, GLs, Choke chains, harnesses, even flat collars and leashes. Like any tool, they may be better suited for some situations and some dogs than others, so its best to have some guidance when learning to use them. IMO better though to give few meaningful corrections to get a point across than spend months or years nagging your dog, which only increases frustration on both your and the dog's ends. Here's a pretty good article on the prong collar that explains how, when used properly, it can be a valuable tool for training some dogs:
[url]http://www.flyingdogpress.com/prong.html[/url]

I train (our personal dogs, and a few others as a favor, so I'm no expert) our dogs using primarily positive reinforcement, toy rewards, treats, whatever motivates them to work for me. That's not to say that there haven't been a few things where I've resorted to corrections to reinforce the importance of, and for some of the dogs, it's been through a prong collar. For example, our older APBT is VERY dog aggressive, and quite frequently would pretend to be a fire breathing dragon when she'd see other dogs on our walks (huffing, prancing around on her toes, just waiting for them to make the slightest provocative move so she could bawl them out)... obviously not acceptable. I tried approaching it through positive only methods, forget it. She's not very food or toy (now, furry live critters are another story) motivated, and even after several months, we were making no progress. Going into it, I had an idea of things she DOES enjoy doing a lot, and decided that my goal would be to teach her to do one of them rather than snark at other dogs. Granted, she enjoyed the latter so much that any of my alternative things was not nearly as much fun, and I could forget about it. So, I used leash corrections with the prong collar to help change her mind, since snarking other dogs got her a correction, suddenly she decided that pulling on the lead past them (she loves to pull, and isn't normally encouraged to) was a much better plan. Problem solved, in a little over a week, with just a few moderate leash corrections. Now, if my dog were more easily motivated through positive only means, I probably could've gotten by without the prong collar, but in this case, it saved me a lot of frustration, and made walks more enjoyable for both of us.

I'll also add that I used the prong collar differently than most here advocate, I DID give corrections with it, as I found that allowing my dog to self correct when she lunged only served to amp her up more and make her act worse... definitely not the effect I was looking for. So, I walked her on a flat collar on one lead, prong collar on another lead, which was kept loose, and as soon as she started making oogly eyes at another dog, I'd correct with the prong collar and redirect her to pulling on her flat collar lead past them. At this level, only a mild/moderate correction was needed, whereas no collar would make a difference once she was already zoned into the dog.

Likewise, I used a prong collar to proof the down on our Dachshund (also used it to work some on her dog aggression, same way as above), she's a priss about wet grass/ground, and when I'd tell her to down on them, she'd look at me with her clearest "eff off" expression and not move. Initially I tried to play off her ball drive, but was getting nowhere, so I felt some compulsion would be needed to make clear that it wasn't optional. She tends to be pretty hard when it comes to physical corrections though, and I didn't want to be yanking on her neck on a flat or choke collar, so the prong collar seemed like it'd be the most effective with the least amount of force. A few sessions later (using a combination of prong collar corrections and toy motivation), and she was back to working off-leash, with the understanding that I really DID mean down when I said it, no matter what the ground conditions were.

I rarely use the collars on either dog now, unless we're going to be in a situation where they may be highly motivated to act out (situations with out of control dogs, for example), or if I'm doing a training exercise in which I anticipate they may need extra "convincing" to comply.

Tell me, does this really look like a victim of cruelty?
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v673/flyingpinkpig/april/annbrickdogwalk05.jpg[/img]

[courtnek]

some dogs require them. some do not. the very stuborn yank-you-down-the-street on a standard collar, or choke chain (which I DO NOT endorse)sometimes do well on these.

now, for the UNPOPULAR side...I walk mine on no-pull harnesses. the hound doesnt need it at all, she can be walked fine on a simple leather collar with some correction.

the Lab X needs it. she is a hunting dog, nose comes first, and I will NOT
be dragged down the sidewalk by my dogs.


I use NILIF, for everything, including walking. I AM TOP DOG.
the same strategies used in the house can work on walks.

this needs to be implemented EARLY in the dogs life, but it can work.

it was never implemented with Free...but Laurel responds well..

[Aroura]

[quote name='Malamum'][b]Aroura wrote:[/b]

[quote]They are illegal in this country, if you get caught using one you get done for cruelty[/quote]

I'm sorry Aroura but that is just not true.[/quote]

Sorry, I must have been misinformed (the person who told me is in fact a very well respected animal behaviorist - I'll have to re-inform her!).

All the same, I would still never use one on any of my dogs. I used to use a check chain until it ruined one of our dogs and she hates training now, now I'd rather not take that risk thank you :wink: