Re the prong collar
I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing. Just looked up prong collars. OMG never seen anything like that.
I've always used the smooth 'choke' chains. Tiny puppy sized ones for tiny puppies up to six months old. Never needed them past that. The chain obviously needs to be bigger for a newfie, but the combination of little twitches, vocal commands and praise followed up by a bit of cheese - sounds like an enticement to me.
Cheese can be purchased in industrial sized blocks, diced painstakingly by hand or a machine and frozen in manageable sized bags. Don't defrost' put bag of frozen cheeselings in pocket.
I first read Konrad Lorenz in high school. He is very much let animals be animals, but the subtext is watch, learn and communicate.