Dog Training, Health and Products By Zoey Dog!!

Martingale VS Choke Collar  

Zoey Dog 

            Have you ever heard of a martingale style collar? I know a lot of people haven’t, but I really enjoy my new collar.  It kind of looks like a figure eight shape.  There is a small circle and then a big circle, which is of course the part my head goes through.  It is so much better than my old collar that my owner used to walk me on.  You’re probably very familiar with the choke chain.  I think everyone knows this collar and has seen it for a long time!  

          Why did my owner get me the new collar, you ask? Well, I used to pull on the leash a little bit when I got excited.  Overall, I wouldn’t say I was a bad walker on the leash, especially compared to some of my friends in the neighborhood.  But, at the same time, I could pull a little hard when I did decide to do it.  One of my owner’s friends suggested the choke chain as a way to get me to stop the habit.  He told her when I pulled, the chain would tighten on me and encourage me to stop pulling.   

          I was surprised the first time I pulled with that collar on and felt it tighten on my neck.  It slowed me down just a bit, but if I really wanted something, I still pulled too much.  I noticed my neck hurt after wearing this collar, and I coughed a lot.  Every time the choke chain tightened, I coughed.  I would strain against it and wheeze in and out.   

          It was at my routine vet checkup that the question of the collar came up.  My owner told my vet all about my wheezing and coughing, and he asked her about my collar, the very choke chain I was wearing that day.  He told her that choke chains can be very dangerous.  They are meant to be correction collars that give information to dogs, but when used to slow dogs down, they could actually cause damage.  He told her that most people don’t know how to use choke chains, and scar tissue can build up in a dog’s throat from incorrect use.  Some dogs can even collapse a trachea or have bleeding in their throat from prolonged use.  Scary thought that you could damage your dog’s neck from just a collar!  

          He gave her the card of a dog trainer, and he told her all about the martingale-style collar.  It’s a kind of training collar, and it, too, can tighten down to my neck size.  The difference is that it is sized to my neck, so when it does tighten down, it cannot ever choke me.  My neck feels so good on the walks now.   

          The dog trainer my owner called told her all about how to use my training collar, but he also told her that no collar fixes a dog’s pulling on the leash.  He told her she really needed to train me how to walk correctly in order to make the pulling on leash fully go away.  So, the great news for me was that my owner decided to take me to one of his training classes, which I loved.  I learned the right way to walk on leash.  My owner was very happy with the training, and I think we’re closer now too.  Best of all, there’s no more choke chain that I have to wear!