Collar Danger!!

[Sharpeigirl]

I had a big scare this evening. I had Apollo & Zeus in the backyard playing, when they started wrestleing, and their collars hooked :o I started panicing. I finally got it togther and managed to get the collar off of Apollo to release Zeus, who was starting to pass out. I've never been so scared for my boys life. Next time no collars on at playtime. I'm a bad mommy :( :cry:

[bk_blue]

You're not a bad mum- collars are really IMO a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" type of thing. I've never had a situation where any dog's collar has locked up with another dog's and I've never seen it happen with other dogs who have been playing, so it quite possibly was a one-off, albeit frightening, incident. :wink: Don't feel so bad! The fact you were out there in the first place supervising them means you must be a watchful and thoughtful mummy. :angel:

[Sharpeigirl]

Thing is it was their "choke collars" which made it worse, since when they tried to pull away, it just tightened. Apollo wasn't as bad off as Zeus. Zeus had it wrapped and it was chokeing him allmost out. Next time I'm going to take collars off as well as leashes.

[Carolk9s]

You are NOT a bad mommy. You ARE now a wiser mommy! 8)
My dogs do not wear their collars at home just for this reason. Brittany and Candy wrestle quite hard and I was concerned about this very thing happening.
There is a breakaway collar available, one source that I know of is Premier Pet Products. Their site is: [url]www.gentleleader.com/[/url]
You could use them as an alternate when the dogs are home, you can put a tag with your name or phone # on it. The catch is, if your dogs get loose, and someone were to try and grab the collar to catch the dog, the collar WILL pop off in their hand. I bought 3 of these collars, realized their usefulness was very limited, so they hang on the wall!
I took Candy to an agility demo once, both of her collars are purple. I grabbed the breakaway by mistake, got there, snapped the leash on, she pulled once and the collar popped. So grateful for her obedient response to my come command!

[bk_blue]

oooh yeah now I can see it would be a problem with choke chains... I was thinking of normal leather collars... :oops: the best thing is that you didn't completely panic and do nothing. Your quick thinking saved them and you should be proud of that. :)

[Sharpeigirl]

Thing is we don't have a back door in our house so we have to take them out on leash to get to the backyard. I just unhook the leashes & let them go. But tonight was the first time this has ever happened. Thank god I stay in the Backyard with them when their out there, I'd be missing both my boys :cry:

[courtnek]

both of my dogs have "web collars" seemingly harmless, except Laurel managed to get hers caught on the "tines" in the dishwasher. Before I could free her, she had pulled apart and wrecked the dishwasher tines.

Sometimes shit happens. Dont feel bad about it.


:D :D :D

[Guest Anonymous]

You were very lucky to be there at the time and your quick actions avoided a possible tragedy.

You can buy collars that pull-apart when caught so they can wear collars when at home or playing (for ID tags etc) - give them a bit of a test in the shop.

We find any collar or harness with a plastic snap clip is useless on our dogs because the just break apart when they pull on the collar or harness (not sure they are all designed to actually do that).

[Cairn6]

Wow! that is scary. Our dogs seem to always lost their collars when playing. Odd huh? One will come into the room naked and I have to go looking for it. They are the kind with the plastic snap clip like was said before so I guess if pulled hard enough they will bust open. Could you just lead them into the back yard with a regular collar?

[Queen Bitch]

Or you could try a martingale style collar, they function similar to choke chains but they have a cetain point where they stop so that they CAN"T actually choke the dog. They were made originally for Greyhounds and other narrow headed dogs that tended to back out of regular collars.
They come in all nylon, all chain, all leather, or combos of the previous.

[gooeydog]

I would be hesitant to let them outside without collars on, unless they have a very good recall. Even so, if they were ever to get into a scrap (both adolescent males, so it's possible that they'll have at least a few :arguments" as they mature), you don't want to be trying to seperate them with nothing to grab ahold of. I'd let them wear regular flat collars in the house and yard, take them off when you leave, and save any training collars for training times only. Haley always has on a collar, on the off-chance that she would decide to pick a fight with one of the other dogs and have to be pulled away, as well as Casey and Joey. Annie only wears a collar when I'm taking her somewhere, and Goo wears one during the day, but not at night (I also take it off her when I leave her in my room). Goo and Haley have martingale collars (like hillside mentioned trying), Casey and Joey have flat collars. The martingale collars are nice, but you have to be sure to size them to where even if pulled, they won't be too tight, and also, a dog could probably still get their mouth caught if they play rough. A better option might be a wide leather or nylon flat collar, less chance of them be able to (or accidentally) grabbing each other.

[Lucky Chaos]

[quote name='hillside']Or you could try a martingale style collar, they function similar to choke chains but they have a cetain point where they stop so that they CAN"T actually choke the dog. They were made originally for Greyhounds and other narrow headed dogs that tended to back out of regular collars.
They come in all nylon, all chain, all leather, or combos of the previous.[/quote]

We use these for all the dogs, and they work great but if you want to grab the dog you have to grab the loop or they slip out. Happened to me more then once.

[xavierandrea]

:o Oh my Sharpiegirl. I feel for you that happened once with my girls. But it was clearly my fault. I had the prong collars on them that I should have remove upon entering the house from their walk. I have been looking for a good collar and I see suggestions for the martingal collar. I think I am going to try that on my guys.

[Sharpeigirl]

Both Boys are sporting nice new Rolled Leather collars. They look nice on big dogs, and they had a nice run in the yard with no incdents. Training collars are now for training only. Hate to have anything happen to my boys.

What do the martingal collars look like?

[xavierandrea]

The ones I saw on line are made of nylon and look almost like a coke collar. Here is a picture.

[img]http://www.okdirectpets.com/store/collars/martingale_sample.jpg[/img]

[mouseatthebusstop]

mine only wear collars to go for a walk with me. As puppies they would pull each other around by the collar. So off they came (they are mirco-chipped)