Quality Matters

When you own and train a dog, the quality of the equipment you use makes as much difference as the purpose you're using it for.

A clicker, for example, is an awesome training tool because it allows us to exactly mark the behavior we've wanted - which will help us build more solid commands and more complex behaviors. However, you have to know how to use it correctly. You can't just one day start training and click your dog for doing things right. First, the dog has to understand the clicker. Second, you need to learn when to click to mark the right behavior.

And third - and that's where we come to the quality issue, you have to have a clicker that you can work easily and without having to hold it in a specific place throughout your training session. That's why the iClicker, with its big yellow button that you can click with any finger, even with your foot, if you need to, is a much better training tool for clicker training than the 99 cent clickers sold at the pet store that only work if you've got your finger inside to press down on one side of the clicker's metal tongue.

The same holds true, of course, for collars. Small dog owners may not sympathize with the need for a high quality collar quite as much because there's little chance a five pound Chihuahua will break the buckle on his collar by pulling, but if you have a large-breed dog, that's a fairly common equipment failure: broken plastic snaps on dog collars. It's why many big dog owners use buckle collars with metal buckles, or a different type of collar altogether, such as a Martingale (which has no buckle or snap) or a choke chain.

I like to use a prong collar for training.

While some people don't like them - which is often based on how they look rather than actual knowledge on how they work - I think they're an excellent training tool, especially if you have a lot of dog, or a dog with a lot of drive on the other end of your leash. They require little strength on the handler's part to make a correction, give you more control, and most importantly, they do not do long-term damage like choke chains do.

(Before anyone asks how I feel about head halters - I do not like them, and in most cases, I think they are the wrong solution. The risk of injuring a dog's neck is very real with this device, especially if you have a dog that tends to go into prey drive upon seeing a squirrel or cat. Ask yourself - how'd you like to have your head jerked to the side upon reaching the end of your leash? The risk is even greater if the handler has no experience with this device and is not under the supervision of an experienced dog trainer who has experience with head halters. The only time I have ever used a head halter was in a class that did not allow any other type of training collar, and there, I quickly switched to a flat nylon Martingale!)

Anyway, back to prong collars.

As with most devices, not all prong collars are created equal, and that's actually what this entry is about - quality differences in prong collars. I'll illustrate them with the photos below which show some of the differences in quality and manufacture.

The prong collar on the left was manufactured by Herm Sprenger and is made from chrome plated stainless steel. It was purchased from Ray Allen Professional K-9 equipment for $13.95. The prong collar on the right is made by Top Paw and also made from chrome plated stainless steel. It was purchased at PetsMart for $13.99.

Both collars seen below are set to fit the same dog's neck. And that's where the first difference becomes apparent. The two end pieces that connect the section of prongs to the chain are much longer on the Top Paw collar (right) than they are on the Herm Sprenger collar (left). That means, space that could hold more prongs to distribute pressure more evenly during a correction, is not being used.


The biggest difference between the two collars, however, is the quality of the prongs. As you can see from the photo below, the prongs on the Herm Sprenger collar have all been rounded off so that there is no way to injure a dog's neck, even with a strong correction. There are no sharp ends to stab, pinch the skin or scrape the dog when you make a leash correction.


Compare the prongs on the Herm Sprenger collar above with the prongs on the Top Paw collar below and you will see that the prongs on the Top Paw collar are not rounded at all. The prongs have a flat bottom. The edges on this collar can be sharp, and the bottoms of the prongs are not always smoothed as well as they could be.


If you're buying training equipment, always first do your homework. Don't be afraid to compare different products for price as well as quality, and go with the better of the two, not the cheaper one. It really does make a difference. Even if the difference is just between rounded tips that won't injure your dog, and flat edges that might scrape or nick her skin.