Training Collar use for Unwanted Behaviors

An overwhelming amount of barking that is going on with your dog can be a result of several things. In a lot of these cases we see that maybe the dog wasn’t socialized well as a puppy, or there was one instance that happened to create a fear, or the barking behavior could just be occurring out of sheer boredom. Whatever is the case we need to be able to give the dog a job, something that they can do well, other than barking. When we can do this, we are putting reliable training on the dog that we can use to fall back on in these situations. We then generally see that these odd behaviors fall to the wayside. There is essentially less for them to worry about. For example, if we know that our dog has a reliable sit stay, that every time we ask them to sit they are going to, the first time every time, what we can do is ask them to do this instead in these barking situations. Sit means sit, it does not mean sit and bark, or whine, or even growl at your neighbor. Then when you see that the dog is barking while sitting, you would just correct for the behavior they are supposed to be doing, “No, sit” (no don’t bark, sit nicely instead).

This being said, we need to find the best way to effectively communicate with the dog, in a language that they understand, what we mean by the training and how we can hold them accountable for it. This is where the training collars that we use come into play. With any of the training that we do, we ideally like to get the dog fitted to an appropriate training collar. Most of the time, this is either a prong collar for on leash training or a remote collar for off leash training. These training tools are an effective way for us to communicate to the dog in a way that they naturally understand to be able to teach them our language. Now I will point out that we are very particular about the training tools that we use. We do not use choke chains for any training, and we strictly use Herm Sprenger Prong Collars, and Dogtra Remote Collars, to ensure the quality of the products that we are using. The correction administered from these training collars simulates a mouth or a nip from another pack member. This is how they communicate with one another day in and day out. So we then can, instead of shouting English at them and getting frustrated when they don’t listen and raising our tone, simply harness these training tools to effectively communicate to them what it is we want! It is very important to note that any training tool can be abusive when used incorrectly. It is never the training tools that are going to be abusive; it is who is behind them.

That being said, we always leave the training collar choice up to the owner. We will never use any type of training method that you are not comfortable with. We want everything to effectively transfer over to the household and the owners’ lifestyle. If it is not something that you are comfortable with, you may not consistently use it in the home, which would defeat the purpose of the training. Once these training collars are put into use with the training, it is very important to use lots of praise and affection, and treats sporadically, with the training. We always want to be sure that the dog has a good paycheck and that the training is made fun and effective for both you and the dog.