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I also would have commented sooner if I had been able too but the hurricane/tropical storm that came up the east coast last week knocked me out of power and offline from Tuesday afternoon last week to Tuesday evening this week. That is where I know I will be parting company with some earlier posters.
I use pinch collars and often recommend them to people who I trust and with whom I have time to instruct on their proper use. No single tool is the correct tool for every single dog, but they are often very useful for many dogs. All three of our dogs have pinch collars that we use for various situations. Lily learned to do nice heeling with a pinch collar. She mostly does not wear it anymore, but earlier in the spring with COVID raging I used it a bit to remind her not to drag me around when we took walks on opposite sides of the street with my mom and her mpoo. She was desperate to get to my mom, but even we were distancing when we walked. I knew my mom wanted to spend time with me as best was possible and that my poodles were very excited to see her. The pinch collar settled Lily down after one week where I had it attached to her leash. After that I put it on but attached her leash to her flat buckle collar and now I have put it away again. Peeves is an incurable bunny, squirrel and cat chaser. Sometimes we see chickens on our street since several neighbors allow their birds to range. He knows not to chase with the pinch collar and I would rather take him for a walk than for his entire world to be our home and yard, which is what would happen if he didn't understand the pinch collar.
Javelin loves his pinch collar because he has a strong positive association with it since me putting it on means we are going out to train. I call for him to come get dressed and he runs from wherever he is to sit and have me put it on. While we train there are times his leash is on the pinch and times he has no leash on. Really I just hook his leash to the pinch when we are heeling so he knows if he is out of position. He loves to heel and has the potential to be a no points off obedience heeler (if I can just not interfere with him with my crooked paths). His love of heeling and affinity for his pinch collar are the result of how I introduced it to him and how I have used it. He was over a year old when I first put a pinch collar on him and I made it looser than appropriate by adding a link. I never attached it to his leash for about a month. I taught him to understand how it would feel by gently pulling it a little bit taught while feeding him cookies and telling him he was a good boy. I have described in detail several times the method I use for introducing pinch collars to naive dogs here on PF. If you want to see the details search on other threads about pinch collars and I am sure you can find that information. The method I use with private pet clients when needed is the method Ian Dunbar described to me when I was at a workshop with him a number of years ago. He (and I agree with him) thinks that if you need a correcting tool and introduce and use it properly as a means of dealing with problem behaviors that might lead to a dog dying that the tool should be used. When his leash is attached to it I never ever have collar popped him, but I'm not a collar popper anyway. It has been a great tool for him along with things as innocuous as pieces of pvc gutters and pipe and moldings that also took work to introduce. He used to shy away from even a frame made from skinny pvc moldings but by teaching him how we were going to use them he has come to have great love even for those pieces of pvc. My private trainer was walking through the ring the other day to set up a landing strip for him and he tried to follow her just because she had molding strips with her. The point is that he has been taught about all sorts of tools and that things that might scare a dog can also be very high value to any well taught dog.
In my obedience classes the only tool I do not allow for novice handlers is an unlimited slip collar. Too many people jerk their dogs around with them, are too quick to not let pressure off until the dog is clearly in distress or even will use them to hang their dogs. I only allow people who I know to be experienced (even with a green dog) can use unlimited slip collars whether chains or nylon. A pinch collar is essentially a martingale collar. The critical points overall to me are: using the tool properly to the level of the dog and the handler; having good quality and properly fitted tools; having clear goals for fading the tool as training continues and making sure that the tool is in good condition. The only brand/style of pinch collar I use or recommend is this one (Herm Sprenger pinch collar with quick release) M Sprenger Quick Release Collar For both of my poodles I use ones with small size links. For the German Shepherd dog I have one with medium links. If the links are too big you will have a smaller number of them and it won't be flexible enough to give the proper level of correcting information to the dog.
I use pinch collars and often recommend them to people who I trust and with whom I have time to instruct on their proper use. No single tool is the correct tool for every single dog, but they are often very useful for many dogs. All three of our dogs have pinch collars that we use for various situations. Lily learned to do nice heeling with a pinch collar. She mostly does not wear it anymore, but earlier in the spring with COVID raging I used it a bit to remind her not to drag me around when we took walks on opposite sides of the street with my mom and her mpoo. She was desperate to get to my mom, but even we were distancing when we walked. I knew my mom wanted to spend time with me as best was possible and that my poodles were very excited to see her. The pinch collar settled Lily down after one week where I had it attached to her leash. After that I put it on but attached her leash to her flat buckle collar and now I have put it away again. Peeves is an incurable bunny, squirrel and cat chaser. Sometimes we see chickens on our street since several neighbors allow their birds to range. He knows not to chase with the pinch collar and I would rather take him for a walk than for his entire world to be our home and yard, which is what would happen if he didn't understand the pinch collar.
Javelin loves his pinch collar because he has a strong positive association with it since me putting it on means we are going out to train. I call for him to come get dressed and he runs from wherever he is to sit and have me put it on. While we train there are times his leash is on the pinch and times he has no leash on. Really I just hook his leash to the pinch when we are heeling so he knows if he is out of position. He loves to heel and has the potential to be a no points off obedience heeler (if I can just not interfere with him with my crooked paths). His love of heeling and affinity for his pinch collar are the result of how I introduced it to him and how I have used it. He was over a year old when I first put a pinch collar on him and I made it looser than appropriate by adding a link. I never attached it to his leash for about a month. I taught him to understand how it would feel by gently pulling it a little bit taught while feeding him cookies and telling him he was a good boy. I have described in detail several times the method I use for introducing pinch collars to naive dogs here on PF. If you want to see the details search on other threads about pinch collars and I am sure you can find that information. The method I use with private pet clients when needed is the method Ian Dunbar described to me when I was at a workshop with him a number of years ago. He (and I agree with him) thinks that if you need a correcting tool and introduce and use it properly as a means of dealing with problem behaviors that might lead to a dog dying that the tool should be used. When his leash is attached to it I never ever have collar popped him, but I'm not a collar popper anyway. It has been a great tool for him along with things as innocuous as pieces of pvc gutters and pipe and moldings that also took work to introduce. He used to shy away from even a frame made from skinny pvc moldings but by teaching him how we were going to use them he has come to have great love even for those pieces of pvc. My private trainer was walking through the ring the other day to set up a landing strip for him and he tried to follow her just because she had molding strips with her. The point is that he has been taught about all sorts of tools and that things that might scare a dog can also be very high value to any well taught dog.
In my obedience classes the only tool I do not allow for novice handlers is an unlimited slip collar. Too many people jerk their dogs around with them, are too quick to not let pressure off until the dog is clearly in distress or even will use them to hang their dogs. I only allow people who I know to be experienced (even with a green dog) can use unlimited slip collars whether chains or nylon. A pinch collar is essentially a martingale collar. The critical points overall to me are: using the tool properly to the level of the dog and the handler; having good quality and properly fitted tools; having clear goals for fading the tool as training continues and making sure that the tool is in good condition. The only brand/style of pinch collar I use or recommend is this one (Herm Sprenger pinch collar with quick release) M Sprenger Quick Release Collar For both of my poodles I use ones with small size links. For the German Shepherd dog I have one with medium links. If the links are too big you will have a smaller number of them and it won't be flexible enough to give the proper level of correcting information to the dog.