Gentle Touch Dog Training

I do not use or recommend prong (or choke or shock) collars, and this does a great job of explaining why

I put a prong collar on Rumi. 🐾

I know. Stay with me. I’ve been sitting with this for a few months now as a dirty little secret and that didn’t feel right so here we go.

I am a positive trainer. And I tried a prong collar on my dog, because I wanted to know.

One of my favourite quotes is
‘The mind is like an umbrella. It only works when it's open.’

Rumi had developed a behaviour I didn't like. After greeting people, if they didn't have the treats he expected, because, I'll be honest, I taught him to expect them, he would use his front teeth. A little nip. Five seconds in. Frustrated. Confused. Expecting something that wasn't coming.

My mistake. My teaching. My problem to solve.

A talented friend who trains with tools saw me training him and offered to help . She had a prong in his size. She knows how to use one correctly. And we agreed on the fairest possible parameters, no handler correction. He would simply feel the collar if he chose to push forward. He would, in effect, correct himself.

And at first? It worked. Beautifully, efficiently, immediately.

And then I watched what happened next.

His tail came down. His ears came down. His whole body turned and he leaned with his full body, fully, heavily into me. 🐾

The trainer said: ‘that's normal, he'll get used to it.’

And I thought: yes. That's exactly the problem.

Because if he gets used to it, if discomfort becomes the background noise of greeting people, then it loses its effect. Which means the level of discomfort has to increase. And then increase again. And suddenly the logic of the whole thing started to unravel for me.

But that wasn't it.

The biggest thing I learned was this.

My Rumi, in a moment of confusion and discomfort, turned to me. He came to me. He pressed his whole body against mine and asked me to help him.

And I thought: I will never, ever be the person who ignores that. 💛

Experiment over. Collar off.

Not because the tool doesn't work, it does. Not because I'm judging anyone who uses one — every person, every dog, every situation is genuinely different, and I mean that. But because I understood something in that moment that I couldn't unfeel.

His behaviour was never his fault. He nips at people because I taught him to expect food from strangers. I created the expectation. I never taught him what to do when the expectation wasn't met. And asking my dog to pay a physical price for my own incomplete teaching?

That just didn't feel like cricket.

So here is where I have landed. Not as a judgment. As a clarity.

My clear, deep, non-negotiable intention is to have a dog who trusts, with every cell in his body, that his mum has his back. That she will never be the source of his pain, his fear, and i will not intimidate him.

Because when things got hard, he turned to me.

And I want to spend the rest of his life being worthy of that. 🐾💛

I'd love to know your thoughts and , just as you didn't judge me for reading to the end, I won't judge you either.

I do not use or recommend Prong (or choke or shock) collars-and this does a great job on explaining why

https://www.facebook.com/1514275901/posts/10243496614300374/?mibextid=wwXIfr

I put a prong collar on Rumi. 🐾

I know. Stay with me. I’ve been sitting with this for a few months now as a dirty little secret and that didn’t feel right so here we go.

I am a positive trainer. And I tried a prong collar on my dog, because I wanted to know.

One of my favourite quotes is
‘The mind is like an umbrella. It only works when it's open.’

Rumi had developed a behaviour I didn't like. After greeting people, if they didn't have the treats he expected, because, I'll be honest, I taught him to expect them, he would use his front teeth. A little nip. Five seconds in. Frustrated. Confused. Expecting something that wasn't coming.

My mistake. My teaching. My problem to solve.

A talented friend who trains with tools saw me training him and offered to help . She had a prong in his size. She knows how to use one correctly. And we agreed on the fairest possible parameters, no handler correction. He would simply feel the collar if he chose to push forward. He would, in effect, correct himself.

And at first? It worked. Beautifully, efficiently, immediately.

And then I watched what happened next.

His tail came down. His ears came down. His whole body turned and he leaned with his full body, fully, heavily into me. 🐾

The trainer said: ‘that's normal, he'll get used to it.’

And I thought: yes. That's exactly the problem.

Because if he gets used to it, if discomfort becomes the background noise of greeting people, then it loses its effect. Which means the level of discomfort has to increase. And then increase again. And suddenly the logic of the whole thing started to unravel for me.

But that wasn't it.

The biggest thing I learned was this.

My Rumi, in a moment of confusion and discomfort, turned to me. He came to me. He pressed his whole body against mine and asked me to help him.

And I thought: I will never, ever be the person who ignores that. 💛

Experiment over. Collar off.

Not because the tool doesn't work, it does. Not because I'm judging anyone who uses one — every person, every dog, every situation is genuinely different, and I mean that. But because I understood something in that moment that I couldn't unfeel.

His behaviour was never his fault. He nips at people because I taught him to expect food from strangers. I created the expectation. I never taught him what to do when the expectation wasn't met. And asking my dog to pay a physical price for my own incomplete teaching?

That just didn't feel like cricket.

So here is where I have landed. Not as a judgment. As a clarity.

My clear, deep, non-negotiable intention is to have a dog who trusts, with every cell in his body, that his mum has his back. That she will never be the source of his pain, his fear, and i will not intimidate him.

Because when things got hard, he turned to me.

And I want to spend the rest of his life being worthy of that. 🐾💛

I'd love to know your thoughts and , just as you didn't judge me for reading to the end, I won't judge you either.

She must have thought it was an adventure at first until the car door slammed and never opened again.

In the dark, footsteps hurried away. And then silence. Just a small plastic carrier, sitting alone at the shelter gate, holding a soul no bigger than a whisper.

Her name is Crownie.

She's only two years old, a tiny, delicate girl, barely more than a kitten herself. Someone once held her. Someone once stroked her head and whispered that she was safe. We know this because Crownie trusts. Because when she looks up at you, there's still love in her eyes, despite everything. That kind of love doesn't come from nowhere. It was given. And then, it was betrayed.

Did she cry out as the taillights disappeared? Did she press her little face against the carrier door, watching the car vanish into a city too busy to notice? We'll never know why they left her. We'll never know how someone could walk away from a heart that beats so purely, so full of second chances.

What we do know is that when morning came, shelter staff found her. They lifted her gently, spoke to her softly, and brought her inside. She was safe but only for now.

That was 23 days ago.

Twenty-three nights in a kennel. Twenty-three days of watching through the bars as people walk past, their eyes sliding over her, searching for something else. It's kitten season, and the world wants the tiny ones, the fluffy babies with their uncoordinated pounces and sleepy eyes. They don't see Crownie. They don't stop to notice the way she tilts her head when you talk to her, or the way her purr rumbles like a little motor the second someone gives her a chance.

She loves like a kitten. She trusts like a kitten. She still believes in people even after one of them shattered her world in the dark.

And every day that passes without a home, the light in her eyes dims a little more. How much longer before she stops hoping? How many more footsteps fading away before she stops looking up?

This city moves so fast it consumes everything, time, connection, compassion. Don't let it consume Crownie. She's not just a cat in a kennel. She's a tiny, beating heart that someone threw away, and all she wants is to be loved again. To be chosen. To have a warm lap and a window to watch the world from, a world that finally, finally slows down long enough to let her in.

Let's rewrite the ending of her story. Let's make sure the last thing she knows in this life isn't abandonment, but the feeling of gentle hands that never let go. A family that loves her until her very last breath and beyond.

She's been waiting 23 days. She shouldn't have to wait one more.

Please. You know what to do. Share her story, open your home, be the someone who stops. Crownie is still hoping. Don't let her hope be in vain. ❤️🐾 she is at Animal Care Centers of NYC (ACC)

Cats (and dogs) are social learners

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