Choke Collar??

[puglover22]

When Ditka was a puppy, I followed some bad advice and tried to use a prong collar to get him to stop pulling on his leash. Prong collars are more like martingale style collars and will only tighten so much, thank god. The little smarty pants figured it out and would walk perfectly as long as the prong collar was on. Of course, as soon as I tried to generalize to another type of collar or harness he went back to pulling. Since I was not going to walk him with what looked like a medieval torture instrument all the time, I just finally gave up and used a harness.
I blame the retractable leash I used at first (more bad advice) for teaching him how to pull. I'd like to learn other methods to stop pulling, because he still pulls.

IMO harness's encourage pulling. I had a heck of a time with Louie because I started him on a harness and a flexi...
now I walk him on a buckle collar and 6 ft leather lead and he walks much better. When he pulls, my trainers says to stop and wait until he comes back and there is some slack in the leash. You could also take a few steps back, when there is slack in the leash move forward......no slack, stop....Eventually he will learn that he can get what he wants, but not by pulling. Sometimes it takes quite a while to get into class because I have to stop every few steps, but he got better. I also keep a pocket full of treats and that encourages him to heel.

[jwestoverpug]

Maybe we should cink to links and give real advice on the hows of training as opposed to critisizing or slamming
Some people cannot afford obedience classes and trainers etc and when they do not know a better way they can not Do a better way

Positive motivation sounds good but if you have not seen it practiced it doesn't make sense

So I am going to go try to find some articles and videos that teach

We don't need to blame...we need to educate

Once again ...just my opinion and I could be wrong

Dana, I agree! But, the original post was simply asking if choke collars were ok, or not in our opinions.

[Ling]

I finally threw away our Labrador's prong collar 2.5 years ago and it was a joyous day for me! I had purchased a sensation harness for him and it has been a wonderous device for his 75 pound pulling body (even convinced my husband)! I have one for our youngest Pug as well and it is magical and I would never (as others have said) condone a choke collar for any breed of dog.

That being said, I do know that there are still trainers out there that are encouraging people to use these "choke" collars...so maybe if your mom could see how miraculous these harnesses are in person it would help sway her?

Here is the link:

http://www.softouchconcepts.com/

Hope this helps!

[VegasMOM]

Didn't mean to start a fire, I think there has been some great advice offered and yes some links to some of the suggested methods would be great! I could send her the links in an e-mail or even print out some stuff for her to look over. I would never send her here because this is "my place", plus she is not very computer saavy. I think with any training method (dogs and children) there will always be differing opinions and I think everyone did a great job not making this personal (I could be wrong, but I don't see anyone being critical or negative)

I am really proud of the people with differing opinions than what seems to be the popular opinion expressing their views too. I am equally proud of the "popular" opinion holders for not going after them for having an opposing view.

PV Hugs all around!

[Sweetie Pie]

http://www.mightypets.com/subcat.asp?0=464

A sporn harness may be the ticket. There are enough straps covering a sufficient area to spread the forward force onto boney areas. (my observation).

Your mom can very easily do permanent damage to a very delicate area by using a choke collar. Maximum pressure applied to a very small area can easily break human bones. Imagine what can be done with delicate tissue.

[daphne & sempy's mom]

I know this thread is 2 months old, but I wanted to share my experience with BTs and pulling. My BTs pulled HARD, and sometimes they still do. We did a training class with them and one thing that the trainer said was to keep treats in your pocket and let the dog know you have treats in your pocket. That way they'll be interested in you and won't want to wander too far away. Another thing we did was when another dog was walking near we had them sit for a treat to take their attention away from the other dog. They are much, much better--not perfect, but almost

I agree that chokes, chains and halti's just mask lack of training. It's a work-around instead of a fix. The two hardest things to train on my BTs has been jumping on people and pulling on the leash. It can be done, and it requires training of the human too!

[Georgia Pug]

Thanks for all this information. China is almost
impossible to walk on leash, and I got some
really good ideas to try, plus, I liked that soft touch
harness, and that might be the thing for China
for Christmas.