I have stayed out of this discussion so far as my experience with prong collars is only second hand. However when we were in Germany in 1990 we watched two good Rottie friends (very experienced trainers) trying to deprogramme a German Shepherd that had been trained on a prong collar. The owner had been told this was the way to go but I think he was very inexperienced and the dog had suffered quite a lot. A great deal of patience and love used to try and get him right again. I was also shocked to see a 6 month old Rottie pup wearing a prong collar at his home. I must say that the training of Rotties that we saw generally was very motivational and kind.
Here in S Africa prongs are not allowed by our Kennel Union, although some of the private training groups do use them. In all our training of Rottweilers and now Bernese we have never found it necessary to use such equipment, but I accept the comments of others with perhaps more experience that us that sometimes there are dogs that might benefit from the correct use of them. By the way I am just over 5 feet tall and weight about 53kgs :-) Marion Brown Teversal Bernese Mountain Dogs South Africa Dogs Never Lie About Love (Jeffrey Masson) ----- Original Message ----- From: "THOMAS SLIDER" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Bernese Mountain Dog Mailing List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2003 9:06 PM Subject: Re: Prong Collars > I use a prong collar on my 130# berner-boy, Ian if we are going places that he might lunge or pull my arm off! <g> Normally he is good on a round leather collar and will stay by my side. > I feel it is better than choking him on a choke collar which can do damage to his throat area. He behaves better and it is a gentle pressure all around his neck area, if used properly. > I once left the prong collar on him when I put him in his car crate and could not understand why he would not get out when we got home. He had gotten it caught at the far end of the crate and I had to crawl in with him to release it. Talk about a TIGHT > squeeze for both of us!! > But he forgave me.......... :-)) > > Carol Slider in NC > > >
