Don’t Let A Training Dog Collar Torture Your Dog
All dogs need training so that they learn to behave appropriately, especially in a family environment. To this end, training collars have been created to help you with this process, and they have proven to be very effective in this role. As with many things however, in the wrong hands, dog training collars can be used to hurt and abuse dogs, so you need to understand how they work and what they do.
The prong collar looks like a medieval torture device, but is actually one of the gentler training collars being investigated here. When the leash is pulled, the prongs start to pinch the back of the dog’s neck. The thinking behind this is to replicate the memory of the dog’s mother’s teeth nipping the scruff of the puppy’s neck. The collar is quite safe to use, the only real problem occurring if the fit is poor. If your dog is one that pulls strongly at the leash though, the prong collar might not be suitable.
The adjustment of these collars is quite easy though. Simply remove or add prongs to suit the neck of your dog. If you can just insert a finger between the neck of the dog and the prong collar, then you have just about got it right.
The Gentle Leader dog collar (or Halti collar) looks more like a harness. It works by closing the dog’s mouth when you pull on the leash. The method aims to control the dog’s general movement by controlling it’s head. The theory being that the body will follow where the head goes. This type of collar is well suited to aggressive animals that lunge or bite
Head control in this way does present the trainer with some difficulties. Most dogs will not take kindly to have any sort of restriction placed over their face and nose, so the dog might take a while to get used to collar. Also, by pulling on the head, it is possible to injure the dog’s neck or back, so you need to take care when using a head collar.
One of the most effective collars used in dog training are choke collars. They can be abused though, either through ignorance or sometimes malice. If you do not know how to use a choke collar properly, seek expert help.
It is essential that a choke collar is fitted correctly, because they have the potential to harm the dog. The choke collar works by tightening around the dog’s throat when the trainer pulls on the leash. The tightness should be released when the trainer releases the leash, but in the case of a badly fitted collar, this might not happen, and the dog will continue to be choked. If a dog continually pulls on its leash, then a choke collar would not be an appropriate training device. They should also only be used by experienced handlers.
An electronic dog collar has the propensity for harm. Whether it is used to abuse dogs though rests entirely with the people that use them. Used correctly, electronic dog collars are a very humane way of training a dog. In inexperienced or malevolent hands though, they can hurt dogs.
Electronic dog collars work by passing small electric charges to the dog via a remote control, which is handled by the trainer. The amount of shock that is passed to the dog is completely under the control of the trainer. The rule of thumb is that the shock should be sufficient to make the dog’s ears twitch and no more. The amount will vary upon the size of the dog of course. Should the dog cry out when the shock is applied, then the shock is likely to be too strong.
