Quote:
Originally posted by spidey
I think that it's NOT a training tool, but a control device. I don't believe it's effective for training (not least because there's no true correction and release possible with it), |
Let me assure you that the above statement is incorrect. Halti collars not only can, be but if used correctly, are a very effective piece of training equipment. Not only is it possible to correct and release thus using positive punishment the Halti collars are far more versatile and can be used for negative re-enforcement at vastly higher levels of variance than any other piece of equipment excluding e-collars. If you do not believe that a Halti can be used to train a dog and then be removed and have the dog perform the same, then I would encourage you to train and experiment with them more and seek a better understand the rules of conditioning and in particular operant conditioning.
I've seen too many dogs depressed or claustrophobic in a Halti to ever consider using it on a dog of mine All this illustrates is that you have seen people using them who do not understanding how to use it correctly. People use these same arguments to deminish the use of all control devices that have an element of compulsion to them including pinch and slip collars. The facts are to get the best results from any equipment or training technique one must understand how to use it correctly. The halti is no different.
I also think that the fact that many professional trainers are moving sharply away from the halter devices says something about how effective they are as training tools. Whether or not professional trainers are moving away from Haltis or not is a matter of opinion. Some are but many now who are willing to experiment and find a technique how best to use them are finding them to be a very impressive peice of equipment with good results. When i first started playing around with Haltis I was one of only two trainers who were and every other trainer around thought us as "kooks". But in recent times I have had a a large amount of trainers some to be to better understand what I am doing with the equipment and have begun to bring them into their systems more.
A prong is effective for training, because you have control over how much correction the dog gets AND it provides an effective release, Once again play around with a halti collar more and you will see they do indeed relase instandly. Halti collars can very easily used, as a prong or slip chain is used, and can be used with great versatility of compulsion. Added to this the collar does allow in the early stages of conditioning a degree of simply control that can allow the user to encourge the dog to exibit the desired behavior and be rewarded for this.
it's very mild in action compared to how it looks, and it's a natural transition between a regular collar and a prong, because the method of action is comparable. I do not in any way wish to be seen to be bagging pinch collars. I use them frequently and have done so for many, many years on many hundreds of dogs. They are indeed gentler than they look and should not be judged on their appearance. However it is incorrect to believe that because a prong is more similar in it's positioning etc that it is a more effective trainer as the dog will hold the training longer once it is removed. If a dog reacts different once the equipment is removed this shows that the dog is not truly conditioned to the commands but is reliant on the equpiment not as a corrective device but as a trigger to the command. Further it can also show that the dog is mearly escaping the correction rather than avoiding it and more importantly the behavior that brings the correction (if the dog does not propoly know the behavior that is required it cannot truly avoid the behavior and thus the correction) and thus shows a break down in the conditioning process most likely in the early stages. A dog once trained should be removed from the equipment and respond the same. The equipment should have become irrelivant as the dog had a conditioned responce to the trigger/command and not the collar.
Judi W writes "I have yet to see a single dog that made progress at all after 5 weeks or more. " This shows a lack of understanding of the person using it. I now train aprox 95% of dogs on head Haltis and we have cut our training time for basic level obedience in half and we usually get very impressive results by the first or second session. Once you understand better the technique required for a halti to be an effective training device it is incredably easy to teach people how to use one correctly. It is one of the greats strengths of the halti that is it so easy to teach people how to use it correctly. Most people get it about 90% right in 10-15 minutes. No longer is the timing anywhere near as critical. Further to this they allow the person to use far more postive re-enforcement as the dog is exibiting the desired behavior vastly quicker
Most of the dogs on the head devices are not happy workers and lag terribly and many whenever possible are pawing at the darn thing. My responce too this is the same as above. This is very much dependant on the handler. If used in the early stages correctly a dog will stop pawing at the halti very quickly (although it is a side effect you must be aware of and prepared to get passed. It usually takes about 2-3 minutes to get decent results and about 10 minutes for the behavior to have gone almost completely) and a dog can work just as happily and positivly in a halti. It is in the user not the equipment. If the dog is re-enforced at the correct time then it will learn to exibit the behavior same as any other form of training. All our dogs work with great vigour and enthusiam and seek the halti same as if it was a pinch, slip, buckle etc. We work a dog in their early drive work in the haltis and it does not suppress this at all. The dog will be healing with it's head up seeking eye contact and pushing the owner to do more same asany other piece of equipment. A lack of enthusiasm is far more likely to be a result of the method that us used rather than the equipment.
I have watched puppies when they were first fitted with them trying their utmost to rub them off I will say that a head halti should not be used on a dog younger than 5 months of age. But this is the same age I choose for any piece of equipment other than a buckle collar or harness.
Well, my position is that instead of spending all that time getting the dog used to something that was designed for horses and clearly is a suppressive device they spent that time teaching the dog they would be far and away ahead I halti when used correctly is no more a suppressive device than a pinch, slip etc.
As I have said above I use head halti collars extensively and have done so for aprox five years now on an ever increasing scale. When I first started experimenting with them I was under the same impression that have been expressed here. Further to this for the first 2-3 months I found that infact the beliefs I had were infact true. However I do not and have never believed that because something shows itself not to work once or have negative side effects that we should discard it and move on but rather we should play further and see where it leads us.
First thing I had to do was find out how to fit them correctly. To cut a long story short the sizing on the box is WRONG. Way wrong. The box says to use a size three on a greyhound. As a general rule I use a size three in a Male rott. The halti must be tight across the back of the neck so as to hold snug around head but loose on the muzzle (It is for this reason I do not use nor recommend "gentle leaders" as they hold tight across the muzzle all the time). Once I had the sizing right I began to master a technique were I could use the collar to steer and reward thus teaching the dog what behaviors I wanted it to exibit very quickly and effectively. At this time the halti became very useful in the early stages of conditioning but that was as far as I thought it would go. That once the dog needed more the equipment would fail as I too believed that it could not release effectively nor did I believe that most customers would understand it correctly and would re-enforce the wrong behavior. So I put it in my "boarding and training" & "my dogs" bag of techniques and for a time that was all I did with them.
Then after doing this for some time, I started to play around again I found that once I have taught the dog to exibit the desired behavior I could then also use the Haltis to apply mild pressure to the dog when it broke said behavior and release pressure as soon as the dog altered its behavior (it must be remembered that once a dog alters it behavior due to compulsion being applied no matter what elevel we believe that compulsion to be at that the compulsion is enough for the dog and that it the dog does not exibit the behavior we desire then we have not taught it correctly. Applying more compulsion will not improve things any). Thus this enabled me to use negative re-enforcement far more readily than before and on vastly lower levels than other equipment used previously.
From here I started playing around more and found that infact you could correct the dog through positive punishment same as you can on a pinch or slip collar. Once you get the hang of the haltis you will find that you can have it loose and give it a pop without moving the dogs head (one of the concerns people have regards the halti that it can pull the dogs neck out. Once again once used correctly you will see this as not the case). The halti would momentarally become tight on the dog and then will release relieving pressure on the dog instantly thus teaching the dog to avoid the pop same as it does for the other compulsive pieces of equipment. Further to this I found I could do so every bit as gently as a pinch or slip chain and to levels to change even the hardest dogs behavior.
In the end I have found that like so many other pieces of training equipment most do not know how to use them correctly and thus end up not liking the equipment etc. However I have found the head haltis to be very effective once I teach people how to use them correctly. At my training centres there are many, many dogs who now perform on lead or off who have never been on any other piece of training equipment than a halti. The dogs work very happily and are conditioned to respond same as the dogs that were trained earlier on pinch collars (very few dogs at my schools are trained on slip chains as as Judi has experienced with Halti collars people that have attended my schools usually find that they are the ones in the group having trouble where as everyone else is doing it easy). Like all training systems there have been failures, people who have come to us and have left without the dog being trained correctly whos dog will pull on the end of the halti the rest of its life. This is nothing new and if you have not experienced this then for me you have not trained enough dog or had enough customers. But since we have used Haltis more often, we have cut that number by half.
I know that this is a little off topic but the question about the pinch has been answered, and I felt that there was a lot of misinformation and a lack of understanding about this equipment here. I will hopefully be writting something more complete regards Haltis soon that I will post here. But please do not hold your breath. On request I also havbe to write ones on "Learned Helplessness", "social aggression", "e-collars" etc etc etc and I am having less and less time now days.
Mick.