Saturday, February 25, 2012

The Choke Collar

It happened.  I ordered one on Amazon like my dog walker has for her dog, and tried it with Mia this morning on a long trail walk.  If last Saturday was a 1 (with 0 being the worst and 10 being the best walking behavior ever) then today was a 9.  She was So Good, and the collar itself is scary looking but actually doesn't seem to hurt her very much at all.  Our dog has a lot of fat around her neck though, as most dogs probably do.

I got a Herm Sprenger prong collar, which was sort of hard to use for a beginner at first.  I just had to figure it out on my own as far as the fit and getting it on her for the first time.  Basically you just choose a link, squeeze it and pull it out and then you can put the collar on your dog just like a regular quick release type collar - no need to go over the head, a dog doesn't enjoy that.
This collar controlled her pulling while walking, which was becoming a major problem.  She didn't try to run towards other people the way she used to - instead she just continues walking.  I'm not sure if it was the collar or not, but she didn't bark at any of the 6 people we saw on our walk today and usually she will let out a few barks here or there.

I will continue to use this with Mia because she doesn't seem to care - she walks along just as happily with it as without it, and I have so much more control over here which is good for the power balance overall in the household.  Hopefully this isn't a forever tool, but it's a good For Now tool to try to get her back on track.

No comments:

Post a Comment