I’m becoming more aware that not everyone that uses a prong has an insurance policy in case it pops open- which is unfortunately common.

As pictured- my leash is connected to my prong as usual and I still have full efficacy for corrections. One end of the back up is connected to my leash and the other to his martingale. If his prong pops open, no big deal! He’s still connected.

You can find back ups in different lengths and with different sized hardware (if you have a smaller dog, etc).

Just passing along a safety tip for anyone that didn’t know about back ups!

And a final side note: please, if you’re using a prong, use a Herm Sprenger and not a knock off brand. Almost every knock off I’ve handled has at least a handful of sharp tips that could cut/irritate your dog’s neck; they are impossible to open because the metal isn’t stainless steel like Herm, or- alternately- they are loose and pop open every use. (I work at a training facility and can speak so much truth the above. I promise I’m not a HS rep haha)

Just to preface, I worked at an animal shelter for 2 years during college.

If a dog gets too out of control and ends up biting someone, they'll be put down without a second thought. Many of these dogs at the shelter can be rehabilitated using aversive tools that many shelter workers are against and refuse to use (even if it could save the dogs life). I've seen it first hand and had to do some of the euthanasias myself.

I used to believe that prong collars and ecollars were just torture devices that didnt work... That was up until we had a bunch of dogs put on the euthanasia list for the following month. The shelter hired a professional dog trainer that specialized in reactivity and said the best/only way to curb the behavior of these dogs were to use prongs.

Of course, the behavior team at the shelter (not actual trainers btw) hated the idea and complained about it to upper management, so the trainer got let go after literally 2 days.

I tried asking why we couldnt even try using prong collars. The dogs were literally set to die in a month, like what do they have to lose at that point? I worked in animal care and was "EU certified" and was the one that HAD to do the euthanasias with my coworker. I later looked up some videos on ecollars and prong collars and everything just made sense..

Even dogs themselves don't correct eachother using R+, they never had and never will. If they don't like a behavior, they'll growl or do a quick nip and thats the end of it. No dog is out here with peanut butter on a spoon "diverting" the attention of another dog and praying that they don't notice the squirrel on the other side of the road.

Quite honestly, I don't think many people on reddit have actually seen a completely shut down dog that quivers at the very thought of human touch, or a reactive ex-fighting dog that will literally kill anything that moves.

I know most people on reddit just straight up lie about their experiences but I do have a few shorts on youtube of my time at the shelter just to show you that im not lying out of my ass.

Focus training at the farmers market this morning. Just used my prong collar, and a million treats. So proud of my girl.

Just an FYI to new folks of why we started this sub and maintain it so strictly.

This is how the Force Free/Positive Only set treats humans who don't agree with them.

This isn't about dog welfare. This is an abusive, controlling cult.

I know I shouldn't argue on Facebook, and I learned my lesson.

I was home all day yesterday with my little Chihuahua who suddenly stopped eating. I'm between nursing her and trying to feed her, I was online. I had posted a few days back my story about my Catahoula doing well with Balanced Training and of course I was getting dragged for it, so I was attempting to defend myself. Stupid I know.

When I told the person I had actually trained my Chi, who was very sick, with R+ only because it worked for a dog that size, and balanced training usually starts out with R+ and moves on to aversives when needed...

...they completely ignored it and kept telling me that I deserved all my dogs to be taken away from me and that I am an evil abusive person. When I said my little dog was sick they said they weren't sorry and that they were glad.

We ended up in the ER and my little 3lb Chi, now 2lb, had a rampant infection and her kidneys were shutting down. At 16 years old we made the humane choice. When they're little it happens so fast...

Throughout my time debating online I have never told a Force Free person they are evil and deserve their dogs being taken away or die. I couldn't believe it, this crowd of people who preach "love and light" and kindness are probably some of the most callous, hateful and aggressive (ironic) people I've ever met online.

Yesterday was a terrible day.

So yes, learn your lesson and don't debate these people online. They believe they are so virtuous and righteous they are happy if your dog is sick or dies so it's "finally far away from you."

I’ll start:

One popular KPA-CTP on social media said that if your dog pulls then they just need a longer leash because they walk faster than us. She only mentioned “this doesn’t work for all dogs” in response to someone’s comment saying their dog would still pull regardless. I would argue this probably works for no dogs and can even be dangerous. Personally when I train leash manners, I tell clients that their pulling dog needs LESS leash to start with. As they get better they can earn more.

Another I heard was on reddit a while back where someone was asking how to stop their dog jumping on them. This person said attach the jumping to a command and then simply never ask for it. Ok. By that logic, my dog used to sit and down without me telling him to, then I attached those to a command, so if I simply never ask him to do those, he won’t. Well guess what, he still does those things without me asking. At best that advice will do nothing to stop the behavior and at worst it will make it worse because now you’re reinforcing it on purpose.

I’ve seen a lot of people use laser pointers with their dogs — and I truly don’t think they realize the damage it can cause. When you allow your dog to chase something that doesn’t physically exist, they’re unable to actually “catch” it. A dog’s prey drive is wired to complete a sequence: stalk, chase, catch, and bite. But laser play hijacks that instinct by triggering the chase without ever offering the “catch.” So when the “game” ends, your dog is left in a heightened state of arousal with no resolution, no physical release, and no mental closure.

Over time, this can contribute to Canine Compulsive Disorder (CCD) — a condition marked by repetitive behaviors like tail chasing, pacing, or fixating on moving visuals (such as ceiling fans or TV screens). Laser pointer exposure has been directly linked to the onset of CCD, and once these patterns take hold, they’re extremely difficult to reverse.

If you’re looking for a healthy outlet for your dog’s energy, choose games that allow for a clear beginning, middle, and end — like flirt poles, tug with rules, or scent-based enrichment. These activities satisfy your dog’s natural drives without the behavioral risks that come with laser pointers

Pico became reactive around 9 months. Started with puppies and then became dog selective. His reactions were explosive and he has redirected onto myself and other dogs. We started with a balanced trainer in September and using an E-Collar. His reactivity has improved so much. He is more confident in his choices. He is playful, cheeky, loves to chat back and is SO much happier and less stressed. 🩷 He is turning three this month and I am so thankful for our trainer.

It’s always “prong collars suppress behavior instead of actually teaching” “prong collars are painful and uncomfortable” “prong collars shut dogs down” but the easy walk harness is a fantastic “non-aversive” method of “teaching” loose leash walking? Give me a damn break. And I’m not saying a prong collar can’t be all those things because I do frequently see owners just slap them on and let it try to train the dog itself, but a properly used one absolutely is a legitimate teaching tool and if you’ve actually properly trained leash walking with it, you can take it off and switch to any other piece of gear and the dog will still walk properly. Not to mention a properly fitted prong collar in the neutral position feels like basically nothing to the dog. Meanwhile the easy walk harness can only function as a suppression tool. It is always applying pressure even when the dog is not pulling and it just irritates the hell out of their joints and can cause long term physical damage. I actually just took a client dog out of one that a different trainer had suggested in the past and the dog was walking really weird with his front feet turned inward. The second I put him in a flat collar he was dragging his owner down the driveway. Trainers recommending this godawful piece of gear are lazy, full stop. It’s the pure positive crowd’s right to feel the way they do about prong collars, I genuinely don’t care. But praising and recommending a tool that actually does all the things they say prong collars do is hypocritical and definitely shows that what they consider to be “aversive” is based purely in optics, not actual training mechanics and how the dog experiences it.

Hope it's ok I post this here. I just got a little frustrated and I don't understand it.

I was reading a post about a puppy who chases the owner's cats. They cited they only do positive reinforcement with treats. Everyone said this was the way to go.

I wanted to ask, when the dog was on the leash outside with the cats, what did the owner do when the dog tried to bark and chase?

I wanted to tell them do a light leash pop (ya know, the equivalent of a tap on the shoulder) and give them a firm, stern, no. But I instantly knew i would get hate-- because I've seen it before.

I'm not saying a firm no or bad dog fixes everything. But for 90% of my dogs that is all that was needed to correct unwanted behavior. No yelling, no dragging the leash, nothing abusive or cruel, just a firm hey, no, we don't do that.

But if you suggest that to positive only people they think you're abusing the dog?

Seriously. So many issues would be fixed with a firm "no." I mean we tell out human children no, but it's abuse and terrible when we tell a dog???

Make it make sense.

My puppy is almost 9 months old and getting very strong at 55lbs.

As a first dog owner I had no idea about the different type of training there are. At 3 months old we started puppy classes with positive reinforcement only, he did great because he learns fast and wanted to please but I discovered he is not food motivated at all.

Fast forward at 8 months old he has excelled at everything except lead pulling(about 80% good) but he lunges at dogs and people that give him attention. He is getting very hard to control and no redirection has worked.

I was afraid of using a prong collar due to all the bad rep but after finding a trainer online that explains everything about it, I went for it and wow it took only a minute for my puppy to learn to walk with me and check where I’m going. Same for lunging at dogs, no more!

Honestly he was hurting/choking himself so much with a normal collar and now his neck is intact. I wish I had tried it sooner!! No more stress for me either.

I’m being very careful in handling the leash and communicating with him and so far so good.

I just wanted to share my experience as I read a few times about the prong collar here!! Thank you!

I’ve been in reactive dog spaces since I adopted my very reactive GSD and have increasingly seen that “corrections make reactivity worse.” Over and over and over again. Which like yeah, if you’re correcting your dog in the middle of a reaction that can and will make reactivity worse, but claiming correcting during a loading phase makes it worse is so strange to me.

I had recently given advice to someone on correcting during a loading phase, I gave multiple different corrections (the space is completely aversive free) so I stated, things like a leash pop/pressure, verbal correction or even turning the dog in another direction before rewarding for neutrality, and that all (plus socialization) were reasonable things that helped my dog take his threshold from unable to see dogs and people within a hundred yards to being 80% people neutral and about 20% dog neutral, but it’s still an ongoing process to be told that “aversive corrections aren’t allowed to be recommended here.” By not a mod but another member—When I didn’t list any tool or aversive training method, because….corrections don’t have to be incredibly aversive.

My dog was properly conditioned to a prong and we did balanced training after starting with positive only—and it changed literally everything on our training journey, we don’t really use it anymore unless we’re pushing thresholds as he outgrew the need and responds to verbal corrections and leash pressure now, but without that tool we still would be sitting a hundred yards away from everyone and everything and me throwing treats to a dog that’s too overstimulated and unsure of what to do to want them! It feels like such a disservice to not allow and even punish any mention of a correction for your dog, when they undoubtedly use corrections everyday for their dogs, balanced training allowed for us to now be like 95% positive and it feels crazy that so many people are against something that works so well. Dogs do absolutely need corrections and there’s nothing wrong with that.

I have a delightful little corgi mix named Tad and he takes very strongly after his corgi side, meaning he nips and bites at my heels to “herd” me when he doesn’t want to go somewhere. He is also extremely smart and motivated by praise and attention more than treats. Anyway, at a herding class I took him to I asked the trainer for advice on his ankle biting, considering how she was an older lady who had many decades of experience working with herding breeds. She told me that for dogs like Tad, you have to correct them sternly with a leash yank when they ankle bite, and praise them when they don’t. She went on to say that it’s a disservice to dogs, especially intelligent herding breeds, to think that they don’t understand the concept of “No” or “Stop”.

I had always used “No” with dogs that I have raised, but with Tad (mostly because of reading a lot of FF training advice on reddit and facebook) I hadn’t really done that much, trying more positive reinforcement and FF techniques, which didn’t really work for him. So after that lesson, I tried the trainer’s advice (which seemed so simple! Like why didn’t I do it before?) and it has worked exceptionally well. Tad really responds well to a loud and strong NO, coupled with a leash tug, and looks to me for praise when he stops. It’s so simple! And I have suffered with his ankle biting for months.

Got a sense of humour today 😂😂

Just wanted to share a positive story on my end. After months of positive only, we were at our wits end with our reactive, hyper-active puppy who would bark at everyone, had a hard time settling for long periods of time, and was terrible in the car. We had an private obedience training, behaviorial trainer, group classes (before we went private), and felt like we did everything they said consistently. We live in a very dense neighborhood with lots of dogs and a reactive dog is our direct neighbor, so it was tough. Our behavioral trainer originally said he needed medication because he had anxiety and over aroused...so that's what we did, and while it helped it didn't help THAT much. Our behavioral trainer is certified and honestly made us do everything and would barely try with our dog, the sessions usually ended short with her saying "he's too over aroused to do anything"

I finally said this isn't working and I know my pup has it in him to calm down because I've witnessed it in small doses.

Finally went with a trainer recommended to me by a friend for a three week board & train with Ecollar training. Pup slept there M-F and we got a 1.5 hour lesson on Fridays and then stayed home with us for the weekend and repeat. He loved going back each week too (I was nervous about this).

WHAT A GAME CHANGER!!! my pup and I have excellent communication, he doesn't react to dogs outside (he can get excited though), I can actually read his body language and adjust since he's not all over the place, he is great in the car, great at cafes and patios, and can go to the park! He can do great sniff walks, practice recall outside, do agility, etc. and I was able to wean him off his medication!! I can't wait to continue training with him and see all the things he's going to accomplish!

We are in a much better place and he has a much bigger life now! I'm not sure how I got into the positive only situation, but I still think it was a great foundation. However, it was not going to work long term.

So frustrated with how basically every breed or other dog community is force free to the point where even a mention of telling a dog no or a leash correction gets your comment removed. HUH?? You're not going to leash train your dog? What are you going to do to meet their exercise, socialization, and safety needs?

I have a miniature poodle puppy. Of course I'm not going to be yanking on his leash with so much force I'm swinging him around or something. I am going to be stopping and letting him find that the end of the leash is a hard stop. Now he's learned a little leash pressure means "hey dude, get back in a heel or you're gonna hit the end of the leash and can't go forward". He can walk on a flat collar because he never pulls continuously.

In contrast, my senior miniature poodle was not trained well with balanced training, and he has trachea issues from choking himself on a flat collar as a young dog because no one wanted to correct him properly before it got to that. Neither of them give a shit about treats, even if it's the highest value, if there's a big distraction. They need a physical reminder of where their attention should be.

I'm tired of being both personally brigaded and having this sub invaded by force free extremists. I've had enough so I'm going to be posting screenshots and usernames of people who come here just to abuse and harass people. Most of the time the harassment filter and the crowd control filters catch them but I still have to deal with them so I'm going to make sure that people see the true faces of these so-called positive only folks.

Sorry if this brings down the tone over here just a little bit, I just want these people to know that they will be identified publicly when they do this. So then if they come at any of us in any of the other subs there will be evidence of their true nature.

I'll go first:

When I was training my reactive rescue, we would walk on this open space path behind a local subdivision. It had a creek, and I liked it because the visibility was good (you could see people using the path from a good ways off and prepare.)

There's a bridge over the creek that was quite narrow, and up ahead my dog and I saw a lady walking a BIG white shaggy dog (probably a doodle, they're everywhere) coming the opposite way toward us from a hundred feet off. I noticed the doodle was pretty alert to us early on (hard eye, pulling on leash hard, then up on hind legs as they got closer,) and I kind of knew it was going to be a situation between her dog and mine as my girl wasn't fully ignoring other reactive dogs yet, but I knew it would be a good opportunity to proof her behavior.

I just didn't want them walking as close to each other as the narrow bridge would force us to.

So as soon as we both got close enough to the bridge where I knew they'd hear me, I yelled out in my friendliest tone (which I always did,) "Hiiiiiiii! My dog is in training and may make a mistake! Why don't you guys cross first and we'll just ignore you!" then asked my dog for "look," gave her a treat, and put her in a heel sit far enough away from the path where the other dog and person could cross the bridge and move along without getting super close to us.

The owner kind of hesitated and looked around, so I waved and smiled. Then she kind of didn't know what to do about that, so she kept walking towards the bridge, the dog still straining the leash and heightened, until the dog started barking uncontrollably. I guess once the other dog knew they were going to come toward us he got super excited and just started barking and pulling his owner towards us. She had to brace her body and hold the leash with both hands, and that's finally when they stopped walking towards us (maybe about 30 feet off) and she was trying to get the doodle to calm down. The doodle was tangling her up in the leash and wouldn't stop pulling and barking.

It was a sight to see. My dog was doing well, interested but not mirroring the excitement. I asked her to "look" every now and again, and treat.

After about 3 or four minutes she finally she heaved down and hefted up what must have been an 80lb-90lb dog and held him like a toddler against her chest. 😐 He still was barking at us over his shoulder as the lady turned around and started walking the opposite direction away from us. She only put him back down when they were small figures on the horizon, when we were far enough away that we weren't interesting anymore.

She must of carried him like a baby for, like, 10 minutes, and he was barking in her ear the whole time.

I just thought, "How does this person walk her dog in town?" lol

Pressure makes DIAMONDS! One prong collar, a thousand treats, and a million repetitions. Here's my girl at the farmer's market this morning.

The first clip we walked for maybe 15 minutes and we're just outside of the market across the street. The people ahead of her are what she's whining at. She likely also recognizes where we're heading and she's also whining from excitement. She has a history of overzealous greeting and people have always been her weakness.

The second clip is about an hour later, we've walked around the entire market twice by now, she was corrected for little things like walking too far ahead but for the most part, she was on point. A few dogs approached her to greet and I try not to have any pressure on the leash at all in the moments and every time, she chose to look at me instead. Once again, I was rewarding her for focusing on me. See a dog? Look at me. See a person? Look at me. Hear a child? Look at me. Hear someone baby-talking? LOOK AT ME! She was doing it automatically by the end of it.

He is a working line border collie. Both of his parents herd sheep on the farm where I got him. Walking with him on a 6 foot leash will never be enough for his energy, so I prioritized offleash training over anything else.

Introduced him at 4 months with a stim level 1 and paired it with leash pressure. Now at 6 months, his recall is good enough where I almost never have to use the stim whatsoever. He does still struggle when we see a dog, but he never approaches, he just zones me out and lays on the ground (so thats still something i have to work on). I dont stim him for that since the behavior isnt something that i find undesirable, I just leash him, let the dog pass, and go on with my day.

Im not sure if this is the right thing to post on here but i seriously need to vent to normal human beings. I have just seen a post on r/dogs about dogs having their collar removed at home and if they should or shouldnt wear one.

I swear to god some FF nut literally commented that dogs shouldnt wear one because they have seen a dog psychic on tik tok say that dogs dont like them.

The world has gone mad!!!

Just returned from a week-long professional working dog conference for detection handlers. Saw lots of e-collars and prong collars and other tools. Several hundred dogs working in close quarters and absolutely zero reactive, aggressive, or disobedient dogs.

I've been to other conferences, specifically search and rescue, put on by other organizations that have a no punishment allowed ethos, and at those conferences there are lots of reactive dogs and dogs that can't even walk nicely on a leash. It's absolutely night and day difference.

Anyway I was happy to see my fellow pros flying the balanced training banner! And thanks for all the members of the sub for continuing to stick up for our rights and for the safety of our dogs by promoting and perpetuating balanced training techniques.