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I am writing this fresh off of a weekend working a booth at the Canadian Pet Expo.  I love working them.  Besides meeting great people, exploring the other booths, explaining to people why they should buy Simply Pet products, and telling them about this Foundation, my favorite pastime is people/dog watching.  Yes, it’s better than watching TV, which I am one of the few people to admit, I love doing.  It is so entertaining.  Does the dog match the owner? 9 out of 10 times it does. You also get to see trends evolve because I have been doing these shows for about 4 years now.  Trends such as the increase of harnesses on all types of animals, dogs to cats to bunnies.  Also, pet carriages/strollers are big, and ohh, the number of service dogs strolling around, it’s amazing.  Who knew so many people needed assistance?  What’s the qualification for these service/therapy/emotional support dogs?  Who knows, that could be another blog.  But this blog is about the routine increase use of prong collars.  Now some “dog trainers”, cannot live without them.  All you have to do is google it, and you can read everyone’s view about them. ( OR, see below great links to further the debate).  But I am big fan of Star Trek’s favorite Vulcan, Spock’s logic, in that, what is the logical explanation of such a training tool? That is my main source of what is right or wrong in all debates.  So it’s you being the judge of what makes sense, since everyone seems to be a training expert these days.   My thought is this, if you have to control or train your dog with a jolt of pain, is that really training? Aren’t you sort of cheating?  Is the dog that strong willed and out of control that it’s your last resort? Really?  I now see 6-month-old Labs with prong collars, I even saw young French Bulldogs wearing them at the last Pet Expo I worked.  The yanking and the tugging on these dogs’ necks is so hard to witness.  Sure you expect it out of the muscled up guy with his choice of bully breed, (ohh, am I stereotyping? “sorry”), their necks can take the yank, not that that makes it OK.

I once interview a young unsuspecting guy that had one on his 9-month-old Retriever.  I was asking him why he does it, who recommended it, ect.  I guess I really led him down the garden path of innocence to be so enthusiastic about telling me all the great reasons he chose to use a prong collar to walk his dog. Unfortunately, my son, who as you can well imagine, knows me all too well in what I was doing, was the cameraman.  He kept shaking his head in disgust on what I was doing. Needless to say I never saw the interview.  I didn’t even play  the “Mommy” card, cause deep down I knew he was right.  I was being a jerk. (But it was fun!)

I discussed this with a dog rescuer at one point, and she gave me a good scenario on why these collars should be in existence. She had a rescue Bouvier des Flanders. The only person it took to was an older woman who wanted to adopt it.  However it did pull on a lead.  The only way she could control the dog and not get dragged all over and injured was with this type of collar.  So that is the question, no one else wanted the dog, and if it didn’t get a home it was going to be killed.  So what do you do in that case?  These are the questions that all dog people face.  So lets say we have to follow both our hearts and brains when it comes to dealing with dogs.  Cause if it’s only your heart, sometimes the dog loses.

They even sell them with the prong hidden, so you won’t be judged in picking the quickest easiest way to get your dog to do your bidding and walk perfectly.

EPILOGUE: Here are 2 points of view. You decide which one makes more sense.

www.bigdogshugepaws.com/choke-prong-or-shock-collars/

www.nitrocanine.com/blog/2017/04/18/use-prong-collars-every-dog/