Choke/prong collars or pure praise/verbal training for aggressive canines?

Question

To those experienced protection trainers amongst us, do you find the choke/prong collars really necessary for awesomely-driven protection dogs like Belgian Mals and Rottweilers, or has anyone been very successful with a verbal/bond/praise approach for "out" or correction for these dogs? If so, how do you do it?

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Answer 1

We use both, Compulsion and praise, to train k9. If you have to deal with malinois charging 35 MPH with one thing in his mine "Take down decoy", and you have to stop him right before he jumps for kill, That is a lot of training. the excises is called Recall.The dog charge the decoy about 50 yard away or more. It requires both compulsion and praise. It's not a sport ,like Schutzhund,where soft dog can do good with all pray drive training. Protection dog training require close to 50:50 or 40:60
pray:defense drive to train. After all, your dog have to fight the criminal until the end.
When your dog dosen't out, you give him a correction. Soon as he let go the decoy, a decoy give him a reward bite as a praise. your dog will learn that "Easy bite" is comming and learn to out as your command. That is example of compulsion and praise.
I ask about "All positive training" to Czech trainers with many ZVV titled dogs. We imported many of his green dogs. He told me than I quote " That's why I don't send tough dogs to Americans. They all want a tough dog, but they don't know how to handle them. What is matter with you skip, I thought you know much better than this ". That was about 10 years ago. And he is still right. Many of us still don't know how to train/handle tough dogs. All positive training and tough dogs don't mix. I start as a Schutzhund handler, Shutzhund helper, Ring helper, than Protection dog & k-p helper. I never met one trainer said he only use Praise.

Answer 2

I work both with and without them.
I really like them if I am working a problem dog who pulls the owner on the leash. I will start with the prong collar and let the dog pull. I never pull but only hold the collar in the proper position and let the dog self correct. They pull but only for a minute and then it is over. They learn to respect the collar. My ideal is to use the collar to teach them how to walk on the leash and move back to the regular collar as soon as possible. I do not use the prong type long term but only to correct a specific problem and then back to the regular collar. Mostly I use it to be sure the owner is not hurt or pulled down and that the dog can not escape from the owner in a public setting and hurt someone else or another dog.

Now if I have someone who has a trained guard dog this dog will never be worked in public EVER. These are the type of dog that should never be worked in public unless it is like a police dog. The liability is just to high and I am not willing to risk the safety of others. I only will work with these guys in the home of the owner.
Same with very dog aggressive dogs. I will not jeopardize anyone else dog to teach one.

I use verbal praise and verbal commands with everything I do but I also use hand signals as well. I want to be able to have my dog sit when he is 50 yards away from me and not hve to yell at him to get him to do it. It works very well and I try and get my clients to use them as well. Some do and some don't. Some will not spend time training and it shows in the dog behavior. When I walk them they are perfect for me on lead but the owner picks up the leash and it is off to the races and pulling all the way.
Time patience and practice makes for a great dog and owner.

Answer 3

You asked specifically about using choke/prong for aggressive dogs, although most of the answers did not address that part of the question. I believe that choke and prong collars are a very bad approach for aggressive dogs. There is a big of a catch-22 in that you may need to use a prong or choke with a big strong dog when there are aggression problems, purely for everyone's safety, however choke and prong collars will most likely raise the level of aggression. Even in cases where a dog appears to stop reacting aggressively, choke and prong collars do nothing to solve the underlying emotional problems of the reactive dog, only the symptoms. The "symptoms" are usually things like barking and growling, which truly are warnings that the dog is unhappy about his situation. The end result can be that you have a dog which attacks without warning, since he has been trained not to express his unhappiness. These are the most dangerous kind of dogs to work with.

Furthermore, prong collars can and do fall apart, usually at the worst possible times. You should never, ever rely on a prong collar alone to control an aggressive dog.

You seem interested in exploring positive training techniques for protection-training dogs. More and more people are finding that it's very possible get get the desired protection behavior from dogs without fostering true aggression, although this mindset is slow to percolate into the protection training culture. Here's a really neat blog from a woman who trains Schutzhund with her Dobermans using purely positive methods. She discusses quite a few places how she trains the "out", and I'm quite sure you could write to her for more detail if you're interested.

http://caninesinaction.blogspot.com/

I give her a ton of credit, because she has no support from people who've done this kind of thing before in her training club, and I'm sure that everything she does is under a microscope at all times.

I'm not entirely sure whether I answered your question because I can't tell if you're asking about techniques for aggressive dogs or protection dogs. They are, of course, two different things because protection dogs should absolutely not by nature be aggressive dogs -- only the most stable and confident dogs should be trained as protection dogs. Since dogs bite by nature, it's easy to teach a dog how to attack and bite -- the skillful part or protection training comes in teaching a dog when it's appropriate, and being able to immediately get them to stop regardless of how revved up they are.

Answer 4

I have done an animal course where we do animal training and had dog trainers come out and visit us. All decent trainers will say the only way to train is the rewards and praise system. If you want a choke and prong collars put it around your neck and see how it feels. They are not the answer you can train animals without hurting them. Look at the big picture not just the right now. Same for dogs who are barking you dont just buy a shock collar coz all it teaches the dog to do is not bark but barking for them is a warning sign. And this is one of the main problems when people say my dog attacked my kid for no reason, they taught the dog not to give the warning sign, didnt stop the behaviour. If you would like more ckeck out www.myspace.com/darkrose86 and email me on that and i can give more info

Answer 5

I've 2 Rottweilers and trained them without any choke collars.
It was pretty easy really. It's all in the tone of voice at the beginning. As they got bigger and was play fighting with them, I overpowered them intentionally. This is important with a big dog.....that way they know you're in charge.
Patience, positive reinforcement, and establish that YOU are the figure in authority. Should work. Choke collars are unnecessary. I feel they anger the dog.
Good luck!

Answer 6

For my Rottweiller, I have used both in her case.
She responds great to love and praise all the time.
But, you need to be assertive when training and working with
the strong breed dogs, as I was with mine. Not mean,
just assertive. (I'm the head b*tch in my house LOL).
I used a prong collar at the beginning of her training,
I have never choked her with it, just the pressure of the
collar from being pulled slightly is enough for her.
These days, she gets happy when I pull the prong collar out for her
to wear because she knows its time to "work" or go
somewhere with me.
Now that she's six years old, usually just a word from me
and she does what she's commanded to do.

Answer 7

It depends on if you are simply refering to a breed you consider "aggressive" or an animal who is aggressive towards other animals or people. I your simply going by breed try the praise and voice corrections. I can stop my seven Sheperds dead in their tracks by saying "No" they won't move till they know who was in trouble. I you are dealing with a dog with an iffy personality you need some assurance that you can take control if a situation arrises. If you're training in your yard and the girl next doors puppy runs by you need to be able to stop your dog from chasing him down and mauling the puppy or the girl. Last time I took a new shepherd out I had a pinch collar on him, never had to use it but I've had other dogs try to attack mine on the same walkway and I wanted to be able to stop a fight before one started. Evaluate your dog and err on the side of caution to decide what's right for him.

Answer 8

I would want to be able to TELL,not ASK them anything. Strong corrections.