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Prong collars get an undeserved bad rap—mainly because they look scary. Sometimes they are even referred to as spike collars and there are misleading and false photos out there showing grotesque wounds on dogs' necks, but they aren't designed to work by poking, pricking, or God forbid, injuring your dog.

They are designed to amplify the sensation of pressure, evenly all the way around the neck instead of concentrating it on the trachea and reduce interference with breathing or tracheal irritation. Prong collars don't choke dogs as they are raised off the surface area of the neck by the prongs, themselves. They are typically pretty blunt and don't feel sharp and don't put holes in your dog like the internet would like you to believe.

We always describe it as putting a little microphone on your leash to improve your leash communication. But you do need to know how to use it. The collar won't do the work for you in most cases. But what we have seen over and over and over again, is how underrated this tool is and how many people have no idea what they are missing out on. You can drastically change your walk and your relationship with the purchase of a collar and a few tweaks to how you handle your leash. It can be life altering!

I know it sounds dramatic, but we see it every day. Here are the links to selecting, sizing, fitting, and using the prong collar!

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Kati@diamondcanine.com

Visit our website where you can purchase our online course for only $99 and get started with e-collar training today! Work at your own pace. This is a very beginner friendly course. You can also sign up for training with Kati and Joyce, visit our shop for our branded merchandise and purchase E-collar Technologies collars.

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A lot of people will talk like the clicker is magic. It's not. And this is coming from someone that loves the clicker. All the clicker does is link your dog's behavior to a reward. And that's the thing that is magic. It's not that it's a clicker, per se, it's what you do with it. You can use a clicker very ineffectively, too.

Understanding what a marker is, how to use it, and what exactly your sequence should be will improve your results with your dog immensely. You can potentially cut your reps by 75%. Now admittedly, I'm just pulling that number out of a hat, but that is almost certainly accurate in some cases because folks don't understand how their dog ties things together.

This isn't only true for rewarding good behavior or correct obedience behaviors, it is also true for corrections when punishing unwanted or bad behavior. If your execution of markers is poor, you will potentially have to torture yourself with correcting your dog many more times..

The best strategy when it comes to training your dog is always to get the message across as clearly and quickly as possible, but what a lot of folks don't realize is that relies on how well you implement the correct use of markers. Can you teach your dog without that? Yep. But it will take much longer. And in some case it may never even really come together.. no good.

A marker is something that predicts something else. The example I use to explain this is the doorbell. Your dog likely knows that when the doorbell rings, you will go open the door and someone will be there. But if you opened the door and someone was there and then the doorbell rang, that association proabably wouldn't occur. The guest at the door would predict the doorbell instead of the other way around.

Also, sometimes it takes you a minute to get to the door. Does that make your dog forget that somebody is there? NOPE! Why? Because once an established marker occurs, a delay in the outcome won't automatically disconnect the events. That would be silly.

If you can understand this concept you can improve your communication, training, and results by an order of magnitude!

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Any support in any form from our listeners is sooo appreciated! We count on listeners like you to help us keep putting out content. Visit the link below to subscribe or donate.

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I want to hear from you! Email me directly to ask your questions and suggest topics for the podcast.

Kati@diamondcanine.com

Visit our website where you can purchase our online course for only $99 and get started with e-collar training today! Work at your own pace. This is a very beginner friendly course. You can also sign up for training with Kati and Joyce, visit our shop for our branded merchandise and purchase E-collar Technologies collars.

https://www.diamondcanine.com

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People often ask me if the training sticks when the dog goes home from a board and train. The answer is a resounding YES! But... only if you follow the instructions. And only if you trust the process.

We sometimes do have folks go home with their dogs and have a bit of a rocky start. Because here's the thing. We train the dog. But then we have to train you too! And then you have to go home and comfortable and confident with everything we taught you. You're not going to be an expert right off the bat.

We spend 2-3 weeks with most dogs. We spend 2-3 hours with you. It isn't fair to think you will be confident after just a few hours with us. You need to go out into the real world and do stuff. Seeing is believing!

But we have found that there are 5 specific things that really get in the way of results carrying over to the owners themselves. Those things are:

* The owners not getting the proper training. So we meet a lot of folks that did e-collar training elsewhere and received ZERO instructions on what they should do at home. Or they received very inaccurate instructions.

* Going into off leash situations without their long line before they are ready to. You're still new to this! You need to practice and build confidence.

* Not following the instructions back home, especially the structure piece and accountability. A lot of folks don't think it's important to limit their dog's freedom or challenge them, especially in the house, because their dog is "really good". But that autonomy and lack of experience with respecting you and your boundaries will follow you outside!!

* Being afraid to turn up the heat and hold the dog accountable. People worry about hurting their dog. And that's natural! But without enforcing the rules, they simply aren't rules. And most of the things we are worried about are just in our heads. Which brings us to the last one..

* The story people tell themselves. Oh boy...do people know how to write a story! I find a lot of folks that don't think they are creative could be writing scripts for heart wrenching lifetime movies. People worry. It's what they do best. And honestly, your brain and body wouldn't be working right if you didn't. T

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Any support in any form from our listeners is sooo appreciated! We count on listeners like you to help us keep putting out content. Visit the link below to subscribe or donate.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2124912/support

I want to hear from you! Email me directly to ask your questions and suggest topics for the podcast.

Kati@diamondcanine.com

Visit our website where you can purchase our online course for only $99 and get started with e-collar training today! Work at your own pace. This is a very beginner friendly course. You can also sign up for training with Kati and Joyce, visit our shop for our branded merchandise and purchase E-collar Technologies collars.

https://www.diamondcanine.com

Visit our social media for free training videos and to connect with us!

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This is such an important behavior to teach. Not only can it be a safety issue if you can't teach your dog to stay, but it also helps your dog learn to be calmer, more relaxed, accepting, and more focused.

It surprises people that the dogs we train all learn to stay yet we never even say the word 'stay'. This is called the implied stay, and it's beneficial in many ways. Believe it or not, it's actually much easier for your dog to learn as they have to make fewer discriminations.

Remember, your dog doesn't know words. You have to teach them what they mean. So if we are talking about the basic commands, your dog now has to learn 'sit' and 'sit, stay', 'down' and 'down, stay', 'place' and 'place, stay'. That is much more difficult than just learning the three commands and that they always hold their position.

We also tend to create the pattern that they should immediately spring back up after a command for a reward. This is inadvertently cemented over time, only making it harder for them to sometimes 'stay' when you ask them to.

In this episode I talk about how to teach the implied stay and what that precise process is including the use of markers (catch our future episode on the use of markers), the sequence you use when training, and how to keep your dog motivated.

Link to video on teaching the implied stay:

https://youtu.be/hNgShtTqJ6s

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Subscriptions are only $3/month! You can also just sign up to make a small donation monthly if you want to support the podcast. Or, if you can't do that right now, just hit subscribe in your favorite app and tell a friend about the show!

Any support in any form from our listeners is sooo appreciated! We count on listeners like you to help us keep putting out content. Visit the link below to subscribe or donate.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2124912/support

I want to hear from you! Email me directly to ask your questions and suggest topics for the podcast.

Kati@diamondcanine.com

Visit our website where you can purchase our online course for only $99 and get started with e-collar training today! Work at your own pace. This is a very beginner friendly course. You can also sign up for training with Kati and Joyce, visit our shop for our branded merchandise and purchase E-collar Technologies collars.

https://www.diamondcanine.com

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This is such a grave topic. I never like getting calls like this, but I'm so, so glad when I get the chance to have a conversation with anybody who is in a situation like this because I know how stressful and sad and alarming and scary it is. And I know how hard it is to know what to do or what to expect.

Dogs and babies don't mix! And it is so common to have issues blending the two into the family. But when something like this happens and your dog actively growls at or snaps at your baby it could literally be a matter of life and death. You are absolutely a parent before a dog owner, and I think most parents would agree.

But just tossing the dog out seems heartless and people are left wondering if there is any way to fix the situation. In most cases, yes! There is hope to live a normal life with your baby and your dog, even if your dog is not having it right now. But it will require some training and some change and a real commitment.

I'm going to break down exactly what that means and what I suggested to these folks and what they could realistically expect life to look like.

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Subscriptions are only $3/month! You can also just sign up to make a small donation monthly if you want to support the podcast. Or, if you can't do that right now, just hit subscribe in your favorite app and tell a friend about the show!

Any support in any form from our listeners is sooo appreciated! We count on listeners like you to help us keep putting out content. Visit the link below to subscribe or donate.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2124912/support

I want to hear from you! Email me directly to ask your questions and suggest topics for the podcast.

Kati@diamondcanine.com

Visit our website where you can purchase our online course for only $99 and get started with e-collar training today! Work at your own pace. This is a very beginner friendly course. You can also sign up for training with Kati and Joyce, visit our shop for our branded merchandise and purchase E-collar Technologies collars.

https://www.diamondcanine.com

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One of the most irritating comments I see from other dog trainers are around "suppression". That's because when you punish or correct your dog's behavior, that is suppression by definition. Suppression is putting a stop to something.

So in reality if you stop any behavior from being displayed that is suppression. Does suppression mean that the behavior will regenerate or resurface? No. Does it mean that it won't? No.

Behavior is moving all the time! But knowing how to stop it is crucial to having a well behaved and safe dog. Being responsible about the situations you put your dog in is also crucial. Some folks seem to think that all dogs should be like stuffed animals with zero ability to bite or react in any and all situations and that is a wildly unrealistic expectation that would result in nobody being able to keep their dog.

We always take the approach with all layers. We train the dog to be respectful, we train the dog to be very reliable and obedient, we build a relationship of standards and accountability, we address and punish bad behaviors directly, AND we take responsibility for the situations we put our dogs in!

In this episode I'm breaking all this down and talking about what suppression really means and how and why a dog's behaviors might regenerate.

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Love the show? Sign up to access our new exciting Xtra content! This content is unique and is ONLY available to our paid subscribers.

Subscriptions are only $3/month! You can also just sign up to make a small donation monthly if you want to support the podcast. Or, if you can't do that right now, just hit subscribe in your favorite app and tell a friend about the show!

Any support in any form from our listeners is sooo appreciated! We count on listeners like you to help us keep putting out content. Visit the link below to subscribe or donate.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2124912/support

I want to hear from you! Email me directly to ask your questions and suggest topics for the podcast.

Kati@diamondcanine.com

Visit our website where you can purchase our online course for only $99 and get started with e-collar training today! Work at your own pace. This is a very beginner friendly course. You can also sign up for training with Kati and Joyce, visit our shop for our branded merchandise and purchase E-collar Technologies collars.

https://www.diamondcanine.com

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The narrative on the internet, and pretty much everywhere, is that you should never make your dog uncomfortable. If you glance at FB you'll find endless arguments and accusations. The common theme is that aversives are never necessary. Pain, fear, discomfort are all bad and trainers that incorporate any of that into their training are also bad.

Those trainers are also made to sound as though that's all they use. This has put those trainers in a position where many of them are publicly caving to the idea that punishment is bad and softening their language or "sugar coating" things in order to defend themselves from the on-slot of attacks.

So what is the truth? Is fear and pain bad? Is it always bad? Is punishment bad? Punishment, by definition, is anything that reduces a behavior. So by definition even offering food or petting could be a punishment if the dog tried to avoid it by modifying their behavior. What is best for the dogs? What actually saves dogs' lives and keeps them in their homes?

If you've ever wondered what the truth is, it's your lucky day, because that's exactly what I do. So here is a summary of my most recent FB argument after a fairly popular UK trainer caved to the mob.

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Subscriptions are only $3/month! You can also just sign up to make a small donation monthly if you want to support the podcast. Or, if you can't do that right now, just hit subscribe in your favorite app and tell a friend about the show!

Any support in any form from our listeners is sooo appreciated! We count on listeners like you to help us keep putting out content. Visit the link below to subscribe or donate.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2124912/support

I want to hear from you! Email me directly to ask your questions and suggest topics for the podcast.

Kati@diamondcanine.com

Visit our website where you can purchase our online course for only $99 and get started with e-collar training today! Work at your own pace. This is a very beginner friendly course. You can also sign up for training with Kati and Joyce, visit our shop for our branded merchandise and purchase E-collar Technologies collars.

https://www.diamondcanine.com

Visit our social media for free training videos and to connect with us!

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Do you have an excitable dog that hangs up the phone? Or a nervous dog? All the information out there seems to say that during the training process you should keep your dog under threshold. Threshold refers to the point at which your dog starts to boil over and make the decisions that you are working hard to change.

Keeping dogs under threshold may sound great, but unfortunately the real world will often throw a monkey wrench in that plan. Also, is it actually a great idea to keep your dog under their threshold?

Here is the thing.. you can't learn to make a different decision in a certain situation if you're never in that situation. And you can't learn to make a different decision without varying consequences. So what does that mean? And how should you do it?

In this episode I talk about that process of overcoming your dog's thresholds and how the process is really determined by the dog. I talk about how we do it here and give specific examples.

Support the show

Love the show? Sign up to access our new exciting Xtra content! This content is unique and is ONLY available to our paid subscribers.

Subscriptions are only $3/month! You can also just sign up to make a small donation monthly if you want to support the podcast. Or, if you can't do that right now, just hit subscribe in your favorite app and tell a friend about the show!

Any support in any form from our listeners is sooo appreciated! We count on listeners like you to help us keep putting out content. Visit the link below to subscribe or donate.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2124912/support

I want to hear from you! Email me directly to ask your questions and suggest topics for the podcast.

Kati@diamondcanine.com

Visit our website where you can purchase our online course for only $99 and get started with e-collar training today! Work at your own pace. This is a very beginner friendly course. You can also sign up for training with Kati and Joyce, visit our shop for our branded merchandise and purchase E-collar Technologies collars.

https://www.diamondcanine.com

Visit our social media for free training videos and to connect with us!

https://www.facebook.com/diamondk9dogtraining

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