FAQ: Small Dog Leash Reactivity (Prong Collar Version)
Basically continued from the last post… If my cousin had decided to use a prong collar! Starting, again, with pros and cons for tools.
The first thing to think about is what tool to use. For a small dog, safety is first. The ideal things to use are either a front-clip harness (I recommend the Easy Walk brand, you’ll need a small unless she’s closer to 15-20lbs, and then you’ll need a small/medium – that’s the actual in-between size before medium) or a teeny weeny prong collar. They have pros and cons, which I’ve outlined below. The other kind of tool is a toy she goes crazy about or treats. The treats should be tiny. I haven’t found treats small enough, so often I use something like “mini naturals” or “mini trainers” and then break them into even smaller pieces between my fingers. You can also mix them with her kibble; her kibble will pick up their scent so she’s more likely to eat it as a treat, but you don’t have to give her so many treats that it upsets her stomach!
Front clip harness
Pros: These are excellent at stopping your dog from pulling forward, and they run only a tiny risk of impacting the windpipe and virtually no risk of impacting it dangerously.
Cons: If your dog’s windpipe extends lower than usual (actually, their shoulders sit low on their neck), then when they pull they’ll cough (signs of impacting the windpipe). This means you need to lower the strap that goes across their chest to get it off the windpipe. However, if you lower it too much and she has a long back/short legs, it heightens significantly the risk of her squirming as she pulls forward and getting a leg through, and then walking out of it. If your dog has very short legs compared to their body, that’s a risk anyway. Finally, if you tug upward as they leap and the timing is just perfect, you can flip your dog. Not A Good Thing.
Prong collar:
Pros: Probably the safest thing you can put on a small dog. The prongs keep any pressure off their windpipe, so the risk of impacting it is nil. (If your dog coughs, simply adjust it sideways a quarter of an inch so those prongs aren’t sitting directly on their windpipe. I almost never see this happen, and usually the dog’s movement will keep the collar shifting around, so even if it happens momentarily, it’ll stop almost instantly.) As long as you don’t make the collar too big (it should NOT be able to slide on and off over their head), it’s nearly impossible for them to escape. It’s also really great for correcting naughty behaviors, and because dogs occasionally nip (touching teeth to each other rapidly, NOT trying to harm) if they’re super annoyed, the prongs simulate that nip and the dogs get it.
Cons: People will give you dirty looks. You can solve this by tying a little bandanna over the prong collar, or buying the kind that has cloth already over it, or you can ignore people. 😉 Prong collars are also kind of a pain to put on until you get the hang of it. (Practice doing and undoing it without it being on Pepper, and that’ll help a ton!) The biggest con is, ironically, that they feel it like a nip from another dog. If they’re super focused on a dog and feel it, you run the risk that they will get more aggressive in the moment, because they think the dog bit them from over there!
There are a few other tools you can use, but they’re either ineffective or risk damage (short or long term).
All of the above said, I personally would suggest a prong collar first. Get a little one (the prongs are slender and only about as long as your thumbnail), and try it on right there in the store. You might need someone to show you how to get it on and off without sliding it over her head. You also might need to take a bunch of prongs out to make it fit. I’ve slimmed them down so they only have two or three prongs instead of the ten they came with; that’s perfectly fine! You only need two for windpipe safety. 😉 The other reason to buy it in the store is if you think it might increase her aggression, you can take it back and exchange it for an Easy Walk (front clip) harness.
If you aren’t comfortable with a prong collar, since not everyone is, get an Easy Walk harness! (See the last post for how to properly, safely, and effectively use one.)
Once You Have Your Chosen Tool
If you decided on a prong collar, go get one. The easiest way is to head to the pet store and actually put it on your dog, so that if you need help figuring how out to use it or you need to buy a few extra prongs to make it fit, you can. Your prong collar can sit anywhere on your dog’s neck, it doesn’t matter. You don’t want it sitting on their collar, since it won’t work that way! I want to be able to slide my fingers between the prongs and my dog’s neck, and not get stabbed. I also want to make sure it’s tight enough that it won’t pull off over their head. I’m looking for a balance: if they aren’t pulling, they shouldn’t feel it, but I don’t want to lose my dog or have prong scratch their eyes! (For the same reason, never slide your prong collar on over your dog’s head. Always take it apart and put it around their neck. Practice before you ever put it on them.)
(“But Jenna!” I hear you cry. “I saw a dog trainer on YouTube who said a prong collar should fit snug and high on their neck!” Sure, if you’re using it to control a big dog’s head, but then it’s constantly pronging them. I just… no. If I can avoid it, no.)
Next, we have an additional stage. If she doesn’t know to check in with you when you say “Look” or her name, teach her while in the house. This doesn’t mean you have to do it for days. In fact, you can just do it a few times before your walk. With food involved, it doesn’t take them long to figure that one out! Say her name or ask her to look/watch me/whatever comes automatically, then hand her a treat. Next, do it again while you’re walking. When she looks at you, hand her a treat. Do it about five times, and you’ll be ready to walk.
So, you’re home, you put your prong collar on, you ask her to look a few times, and you open the front door! Keep your leash short at first; you don’t want her building up speed and hitting the end of the prong collar. Ouch. She’ll dash forward, but with your short leash she shouldn’t get more than a foot before the prong collar pulls her up. She’ll probably back off it automatically. Reward, and give her a treat. As she starts to dash forward again, shake your leash.
Now, notice I didn’t say, “Yank on your collar.” No, just shake your leash. The prongs will barely rattle against her, and that’s all we want to start. If you do it too hard, your dog might yelp in surprise, and we’re just trying to avoid that much surprise. This isn’t meant to be bad or painful, so we don’t want to make it that way!
Most likely, a rattle will make your dog jump back in surprise. In your dog’s mind, you just nipped her. (Those prongs, when they’re loose-tight-loose, feel like teeth. Be gentle with your teeth.) She’ll probably look at you like, “WTH?” Give her a treat!
Step out the door and, if needed, rattle again. Treat again!
If your dog is alarmed, clip the leash to the prong collar AND their flat collar. That will limit how much the prong collar moves, so it’s even gentler. Again: we’re not trying to hurt or frighten, we’re trying to communicate.
“Huh?” I hear you cry.
Communicate. We’re not saying, “If you do X I’ll cause you pain!” We’re saying, “When you do X I don’t like it, and I’m communicating that with a little nip, like another dog might do.”
So, now you head down the driveway. You should give her five more treats before you hit the end of a normal sized driveway. That’s treats in VERY quick succession. Every time she pulls you’ll give a rattle. Pretty quickly your rattle won’t work, because she’ll be going, “Ha! That might have startled me the first time, but now I know it’s nothing big.” At that point you can start giving quick little tugs. They’re call “pop”s, and the goal is speed, NOT power. Start with a loose leash (if your leash is straight it’s not loose), give a flick of your wrist, and it should end looser than when you started. Don’t drag, pull, yank, or anything else where you’re making your dog’s feet move. The goal isn’t to bring her back where we want her, it’s to say, “I don’t like it when you pull. Please make a different choice.” When she checks in or comes back, treat!
Now for step two! …Or three? Maybe four. I dunno!
Watch her ears. When a dog is only focused on one thing, to the exclusion of everything else, they pitch their ears forward. It usually creates wrinkles in their forehead, so it’s fairly easy to spot. When dogs are aware of their surroundings (including you, what you think of things, and whether or not you’re preparing to attack the approaching dog) and/or they want to be friendly, they relax their ears sideways. Every time your dog’s ears pitch forward, say her name (or say “look” or “watch me” – whatever your command is) and reward her for looking back at you. If she doesn’t look at you, give a quick tug on the leash. Then say her name and reward when she looks. Dogs frequently pitch their ears forward just before or the instant another dog is in sight; that’s when you want to get her attention on you and your treat, or pop if you need to. If you wait until she’s vocalizing, you’re too late.
With a prong collar you can generally snap a dog out of an aggressive moment even if you don’t catch it early, or even if they ignore your treat. HOWEVER, there’s a flaw: if your dog is REALLY focused on the other dog, they may think the “nip” came from that other dog instead of you! If that happens, their aggression in the moment will be worse. This is a sign that you either need to switch to a different tool (like a front clip harness) and work with that until they’re calmer (at which point you can continue working with a prong collar, which will speed up the process), or you need to keep enough distance between you and the other dogs that your dog doesn’t get that worked up in the first place.
Ready? Set? Go!
Jenna
