First off, never send your dog away to be trained. Get yourself and your pup enrolled inobedience classes so that both you and your pup learn how to work together. Secondly the prong collar is not a mid-eviltorture device. It is a training tool. What the trainer said is correct in that the prong distributes the pressure evenly about the neck. It is not designed to hurt the dog, although if used improperly it can. In order to feel how the collar works, put it around your thigh and give it a tug like you give a correction and you will feel how the collar distributes the pressure across your thigh .If you do not like the prong, don't use it. But as I said before you need to get yourself and your pup enrolled in classes so that you can learn how to work with the dog.