[Bill]

Hi Stella – you have chosen the perfect size prong collar for your dog! The fit needs to be snug and high, exactly as you describe. The closer it is to the brain, the quicker it works. More good news, those little noises when pressure is applied, are protests. If you stop hearing a protest, you are not being as effective. I am not suggesting to pop harder – I am suggesting reposition the collar and make sure everything is still in the right place and proper snugness. The goal is to use the least amount of pressure needed to elicit the desired response/behavior until the desired behaviors are conditioned/trained and you have compliance. As you begin to see the desired improvements and want to proof behaviors without the prong, I suggest you double rig the dog, both flat and prong collar and switch the lead to the prong if you have issues or see a potential issue on the horizon. Likewise, it is strongly recommended that you have a back up collar when using the prong collar (if you need more description, just let me know and i can add that.)

As to the proper number of links – as long as you have a snug, NOT tight, fit and it stays up high on the neck, you are in the right place. Robert has a modification in one of his prong collar videos to remove the center plate between the links for a continuous direction of pressure. When you look at the HS prong – the center link if you will, that is not an actual prong, is removed and the prongs are then interconnected to be one directional. (So hard to explain a simple concept)

While the videos with how to use the prong are extremely beneficial and will serve you well, I think you may also benefit from looking at the videos for correcting leash aggression. The reason I say this is that if your timing is off, and your dog is a little reactive to other dogs while it is on a leash, you don’t want to inadvertently make the issue worse with incorrect timing. More specifically, the timing of corrections/pops is crucial – done improperly you may inadvertently make the possible issue worse by pops at the wrong time and your dog begins to associate seeing another dog with a pop to the prong collar. By knowing how to correct the problem, you can use that information to learn the proper timing and know what you are trying to avoid.

Finally, when issuing a correction, do not look at the dog to see what is happening. By not looking at the dog, the dog just thinks those pops come out of the blue and they do not generalize that you did that to them. I hope something is helpful as you gain experience with the prong collar – used properly it is a dynamite tool. Happy Training!!

[Stella]

Thanks every much for your reply, much appreciated. I am backing up with her martingale , do not want her getting loose! I will try Roberts modification, I think it was a tad tight before but maybe a tad loose now. Thanks again!

[Ed]

Oh, if you need the martingale to sit lower/loser, or if her standard collar is a flat one, you can use an extension (Amazon ASIN B07KM9GM7P).