PLEASE HELP!! My small dog won't stop chasing my chickens.

[secuono]

Quote:
What do you do when her fur is too thick for a prong collar or the shock collar? And she's already killed birds before....

What is too thick? I've seen e-collars on just about every kind of dog with different coats. The e-collars have different length prongs. So for dogs with long hair you put on the long prongs. The prongs work their way down to the skin causing contact.

As for the pinch collar... Don't confuse the pinch collar with a choke collar. Do not choke your dog! The pinch collar has very long prongs so when you tighten the rope it will pinch the skin.

I know the difference for both. The ecollar came with short and long prongs, neither worked, we tested it on low on ourselves and it did work, but it just never could get to her skin. My doberman also has a ecollar, have to use the long prongs on him, the short never works right. He also has a prong collar for walks, a what I call 'half choke' collar too. It's a material collar with chain for the part that tightens, he wears it as a regular collar. But It's only a safety thing with him, he can back out of other collars and this one he can't. I never use the choke collar for anything other than just in case something freaks him and he suddenly backs up, other than that, it holds his tags. But we are on a farm, never walk him or w/e unless to the vet, where he needs to prong collar or he will pull my arms out. The ecollar was used to keep him on the property and when we have guests so he won't go for them. He's a very smart dog, but the little dog is a totally different story.
Sorry to highjack the OP's thread.

 

[madgabmomma]

Quote:
What is too thick? I've seen e-collars on just about every kind of dog with different coats. The e-collars have different length prongs. So for dogs with long hair you put on the long prongs. The prongs work their way down to the skin causing contact.

As for the pinch collar... Don't confuse the pinch collar with a choke collar. Do not choke your dog! The pinch collar has very long prongs so when you tighten the rope it will pinch the skin.

I know the difference for both. The ecollar came with short and long prongs, neither worked, we tested it on low on ourselves and it did work, but it just never could get to her skin. My doberman also has a ecollar, have to use the long prongs on him, the short never works right. He also has a prong collar for walks, a what I call 'half choke' collar too. It's a material collar with chain for the part that tightens, he wears it as a regular collar. But It's only a safety thing with him, he can back out of other collars and this one he can't. I never use the choke collar for anything other than just in case something freaks him and he suddenly backs up, other than that, it holds his tags. But we are on a farm, never walk him or w/e unless to the vet, where he needs to prong collar or he will pull my arms out. The ecollar was used to keep him on the property and when we have guests so he won't go for them. He's a very smart dog, but the little dog is a totally different story.
Sorry to highjack the OP's thread.

no need to apologize I hope you can get your situation figured out too!! I've never tried an ecollar. Hmm

 

[secuono]

All I can say about the ecollar is be very careful, you can easily train them to do the wrong thing..lol.
Like instead of just staying away from something, to coming to you...opps

 

[san415]

To madgabmomma
Yes you are so right, all dogs, unless they were born with mental problems are have developed mental problems, normally due to us humans, can learn what is expected of them. Its up to the human to figure out how to do that, to help the dog learn. And caring about teaching them is a long way towards that.
Your Dog will be able to learn and you sound like you wont have any problem teaching the dog.

Don't forget that the idea of a light long rope to train outside is so that the dog will have a sense of freedom, so training on a leash will be harder for both of you. But keeping the dog on a leash will certainly help the dog get immediate feed back from you when the dog does some thing you don't want it to.

A lot of trainers feel that small dogs are harder to train than large dogs. That is a very general statement, of course there are exceptions to that. My experience shows that to be true though, I have to be much more aware of what I allow my toy breeds to do than my larger breeds. And it is so easy to spoil or carry a small dog. They can jump on you and it seems like no problem. And most small dogs don't get enough time walking on their own when they are learning as a pup, which can make them a nervous and trembling adult dog prone to nipping.


To bgates 1970,
No I am not a, or the, Dog Whisperer, I rarely even get to watch him. But I have trained and help train a lot of dogs. Any Dog can learn a command in 2 weeks time if the owner works with them a bit. Remember the op said the dog was chasing for fun, the dog so far has not done any physical damage. So with that in mind I don't think it will even take two weeks. Almost any training system will work to get the desired result, sometimes it just helps to know in exact steps what has worked for other trainers. And the "leave it" command I use is found in many many training handbooks, by many different trainers.

There are a lot of ways to train a dog and the ways I use work for me. Of course they won't work for everyone or every dog. My dogs are expected to mind me 100% and rarely do they disappoint me. I try to never get angry and I never use force, but I do train everyday at least for a few minutes. And its real nice to go somewhere with one of my dogs and have it behave so much better than a lot of the dogs there.