Ditch the Stress Collar

There are many things that are difficult and scary for pet owners when they can see, let alone when they can't see. When I got my first Guidedog, he and our other dog loved to play and they would often grab each others' scruffs and wrestle in that manner. One day, luckily when we were home, they were playing around in our living room as they had done a million times before, and one dog grabbed the other dog's collar. The other dog, playfully trying to get away, twisted and backed up, causing the first dog's jaw to get twisted in the chain of the collar, further resulting in the collar tightening around the second dog's neck.

Fortunately we have always been good about putting our hands in our dogs mouths and playing with their teeth and all that so they were used to us handling them lots. That didn't take away from how panicked they both felt being stuck like that and both of them pulling and trying to get away. Now the collars that we had on them at the time were slip on/off and had a half chain. The only way to get them off, with two dogs attached, was to cut the collar. Just as we were grabbing the scissors because we couldn't get them untangled, they finally wrenched themselves free and were luckily unharmed...other than completely stressed out.

This experience led to a no collars policy in our house. When I put my Guidedog's harness on, his collar went on; when the harness came off, so did the collar. As a blind individual, I use the tags on the collar, as well as a bell, to help me identify where my dog is, so not having a collar was a little 'blinding' for me. This no collar policy went on for about a decade while I searched for a solution that would be suitable for everyone involved.

When we got our most recent puppy addition to the family, I knew I had to find something so we could a) have his tags on him in case he ran away and b) I could have a beeper on him so I could work on his recall when nobody else was home. So the search continued. I finally came across a collar that had multiple sizes for as he grew, a buckle for easy on/off, and a quick release that would pop open if any puppers got stuck together or stuck on something else. I wasn't really sure what to expect when I ordered the collar but when I received it, I was so please with the look/feel/functionality that I ordered three more; one for his big boy collar when he grew up, one for my current Guidedog, and one for our other farm dog.

It took a bit of getting used to since the first reaction when training a puppy is to grab the collar and if he pulled too hard, it would break. It took a fair bit of force to break it but we learned very quickly where to grab to disable the break functionality. We were also happy to see that the collar did indeed work while the dogs were playing because it did break a couple of times when our bigger dogs grabbed onto the puppy playfully and must have gotten a tooth or something caught. It is also worth noting that when the collar 'breaks' it isn't unusable, it just snaps back together. It has a circle nub that matches a C shaped partial ring and the C snaps around the nub. Also, there is a D ring on either side of the breakpoint that allow you to disable the break functionality by putting the leash through both D rings.

Not having the stress of collars that can get stuck on things has been a huge relief. It has also been really nice to be able to know where all of my dogs are by the sound of their tags/bells/air tags. As I mentioned, the collar comes in several sizes and thicknesses and a few different colours. So you can pick the one that fits your puppers needs and personality best!

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