There's a moment every big dog owner remembers. For me, it was the day Mack spotted something across the road, lurched forward, and put me flat on my face on the gravel. Knees, palms, dignity — all gone. And it wasn't the first time.
If you've owned a big dog long enough, you've probably had a version of this moment. And if you're like me, you've also worked your way through a drawer full of collars trying to fix it.
I'm writing this post from the middle of a journey, not the end of one. Mack is currently on a prong collar. I'm not here to defend it, I'm here to help others not reach this stage. I ended up here because I kept reaching for the next tool when the last one stopped working — and what I didn't do, at any stage, was properly learn how to train the behaviour underneath. Interestingly, I've worked with three training organisations, all of which have helped to get me to this point!
This is the honest story of how I got here, why this keeps happening to big dog owners, and what I'm doing now to change it.
We started with a flat collar
Where every puppy starts. Soft, simple, just somewhere to clip the lead and hang the ID tag.
Mack as a puppy was fine on it. He was small enough that pulling didn't really matter, and he was still working out what the lead even was. But he grew. And grew. And the same flat collar that was perfectly adequate at six months was useless by twelve.
When your big dog can drag you along on a flat collar, you're not really walking the dog anymore — he's walking you.
I never went the harness route beyond 4 months old, because Mack is strong and adventurous, and the harness gave him more pulling power, not less.
A flat collar isn't a training tool. It's somewhere to put a name tag.
Then we moved to a slip collar
A slip collar was recommended as the logical next step. Simple, effective, what a lot of trainers start with. The pinch when Mack pulled was enough feedback to make him stop, and for a while it worked beautifully.
Then he hit eight or nine months old. He got bigger. Stronger. And he worked out that if he pushed through the pinch, he got to whatever he wanted on the other end. The collar stopped being a brake.
That's when I started getting pulled flat on my face. Once in a park, on grass. Once on the kerb as my footing was uneven. A close call on the road that still makes my stomach drop when I think about it.
A slip collar relies on the dog finding the pressure worth avoiding. When the reward on the other end is bigger than the pressure feeling, the collar stops working.
Onto a halter style
A trainer recommended a halter-style next, and the idea makes sense — control the head, control the dog. The trainer conditioned Mack to the halter for 2 weeks at a stay and train.
On Mack's return, the honeymoon was real. Mack hated the feeling over his nose. He stopped pulling because every time he did, his head turned, and he didn't like it. For a few months, walks were calm. I started to think we'd cracked it.
Then two problems crept in.
The first was that he never stopped trying to rub it off. Pawing at his nose, rubbing on the grass, on walls, in between my legs, in between anyone else's legs. He was often successful — and although it was still attached to him and he couldn't run away, it had lost all control power.
The second was slower, and it's the one that really matters. After a few months, the halter just… stopped bothering him. The thing that had felt strange and uncomfortable became background noise. And the pulling came back. Harder.
Head halters work because they're novel and uncomfortable. Dogs adapt to both.
And that's how I ended up on a prong
By the time the halter stopped working, I was running out of ideas. Mack was too strong, the situations on walks were too unpredictable, and I needed something I could actually hold him on. I went to see a trainer about Mack's dog reactivity. Once she had observed Mack and I in 3 different sessions, she suggested the prong collar, sometimes called a pinch collar.
Given my strong belief that I should be in control of my dog at all times (on and off lead) and my concerns about controlling Mack when reacting to other dogs, I agreed to the prong.
It's working. The pressure is more even, the feedback is faster, and right now it's doing the job I needed it to do.
But I know exactly where this is heading. The slip worked. The halter worked. And then they didn't. The prong is doing the job right now, but it's not the answer either. Because none of these tools was ever the answer. They were all just brakes — and what I never did was teach Mack how to walk outside of home.
Reaching for a stronger tool felt like solving the problem. It was just postponing it.
Why dogs become "ignorant" of the tool
There's a name for what kept happening with Mack, and it's worth understanding because it's the reason this cycle catches so many big dog owners out.
It's called habituation. Dogs — like people — adapt to constant stimuli. The sensation that feels strong on day one feels normal by month three. It's the same reason you stop noticing your watch on your wrist, or the hum of the fridge.
When the tool's discomfort fades into the background, the only thing left is the dog's motivation to get to whatever they want. And for a big dog spotting a kangaroo, a kid on a scooter, or another dog across the road — that motivation is huge.
The tool was never going to win that fight on its own. It was always a stopgap while the actual training happened.
I wish I had known this before.
What I got wrong
I relied on the tool to do the job. I strapped it on, headed out the door, and expected the collar to handle the pulling. Every walk where Mack pulled and still got to the thing he wanted — the smell, the dog, the park — was a walk where pulling got rewarded. The collar didn't stop that. It just made it slightly less comfortable.
Pulling is what trainers call a "self-rewarding behaviour." Mack pulled, Mack got closer to the goal, Mack learned: pulling works.
I wasn't failing because I picked the wrong tool. I was failing because I never fully built the skill underneath.
What I'm doing now
Here's the actual work — the stuff I should have been doing from the start. None of it is a quick fix, and that's exactly the point.
1. Training separately from the walk
Walks are too distracting and too high-stakes to be training sessions. I do short sessions in the backyard or on a quiet street where I can actually win, then build from there. The walk itself is where we use the skills — not where we learn them.
2. Rewarding the moments I want more of
Whenever Mack is calm beside me, checking in, or making a good choice on his own, I mark it and reward it. Treats, praise, a quick game — whatever lands. The goal is to make being near me more rewarding than being three metres ahead of me.
3. Not letting pulling work anymore
When the lead goes tight, I stop. Or I turn around. No progress, no reward. He's learning — slowly — that tight lead means we don't get where he wants to go. It's frustrating for both of us, but it's the only way to break a habit that's been reinforced for years.
4. Managing the environment, not just the dog
A massive part of this is not setting Mack up to fail. If I know a route is going to be full of triggers he can't handle yet, we don't take it. If he's worked up before we leave, we wait. Picking my battles isn't avoidance — it's training. Every walk where he doesn't pull is a walk where pulling didn't get rehearsed.
5. Being honest about his stage
If Mack can't do a calm walk in the backyard, he can't do it on a busy footpath. I'm training where I can win, then building up. It's slower than I want it to be, but it's actually working — which is more than I can say for any of the collars.
6. Building value for being with me
This is the bit I missed for years. Mack didn't pull because he was bad — he pulled because everything out there was more interesting than I was. So I'm working on changing that. Random treats. Games on walks. Being more engaged with him. The game is about his enjoyment more than mine. The walk is his outing, not me completing 5k. The more interesting I am, the less he needs to drag me toward the next thing.
7. Being consistent
The hardest one. Every tight lead I let slide, every "just this once" because I'm in a rush — that's a brick in the wall I'm trying to knock down. Mack learns from every single walk, not just the ones where I'm paying attention. So I'm trying to pay attention to all of them.
The prong is still on for now. But every session I do above is a session that brings the day closer when it isn't.
Final thoughts
The hard lesson from Mack's journey is this: every tool is a brake. None of them is a steering wheel.
We're working on it. Better than we were. Still not where I want us to be. But for the first time, I feel like we're actually moving in the right direction — because I'm finally doing the work I should have done years ago.
If you're cycling through collars right now, you're not failing. You're just at the point a lot of us reach — where the gear has run out of road, and the only thing left is the work. I'm in it with you.