My dog is larger than I think.

2009-06-30T18:29:00.001-07:00

Funny to think that now I actually have a place to post all my random dog things. Huh.

I have two dogs, a brindle pitbull named Lily, and a black and red king shepherd named Cash. You can see them in the side picture there, though it's close to a year old! (And I look so young, which amuses me to no end.)

Cash is a big dog. He stands 25 inches at the shoulder, which means that when he lifts his head his nose touches the bottom of my ribcage. The thing is, I'm so used to seeing him that I don't notice how big he is, anymore. It's not until I see him in new surroundings, or see just one aspect of him, that I remember he's a very large dog.

I had one of those moments just now, looking out my sliding glass door and laughing at all the nose-smears on it. And then I realized that those nose-smears are as high as the door handle, and that Cash doesn't have to lift his head to make them. Half the time his head is tipped down, looking at the cat that likes to wander around my deck.

He's just very large.

It's a little bit disturbing.

Leashes and collars and harnesses, oh my!

2009-06-30T16:42:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally broke down and started a blog. Now I just need to keep up with it!

Let's talk about no-pull gear for a moment. If you're not familiar with no-pull equipment, the idea behind it is to keep your dog from pulling on you. Some of these things are really useful, and some of them are really harmful.

The best course of action from a dog training stand point is to not use them at all, and rather teach your dog to walk beside you! This changes all sorts of behavior for them, because the leader of the pack leads the way -- if they're in front, they're the leader!

But I'll leave that blog entry for another day, and focus on the subsect of people who have mellow, relaxed dogs that don't cause problems even if they are the leaders. ;) The people who own such dogs usually don't care if the dog walks ahead -- he doesn't cause a problem, anyway! In these cases, there are all sorts of gizmos to keep your dog from tugging on you as you head out of doors. (But, oh, how my little dog trainer heart is crying out -- your dog will be happier if you take charge! I just have to point that out once more, and then I'll leave it be. *grins*)

So, let's talk about these gizmos, what I like and what I don't, and why.

1. A simple collar.
That one that your dog is wearing with a tag that, at least, has your phone number on it. (It DOES have your phone number on it, or an ID of some kind, right? Right? If your house burns down and your dog escapes, you want her returned, correct? I thought you were good owners and had ID on your dog. Well done!)

A collar is really effective handle for grabbing your dog to stop a charge toward the chocolate you just dropped, or to hang their tags on, but it's not really meant to stop a dog from pulling. Where a collar sits on your dog is one of the strongest pulling centers of their body -- right at the bast of the neck, near the shoulders. It really isn't made to stop them from pulling at all, and if you jerk on it you're more likely to yank their necks out of alignment than with almost any other collar. Imagine the chiropractic work you'd need to do if someone strapped a collar on you and then yanked! They're not so different.

2. A martingale/hound collar
These have the same problem as the ones above, but if you have a dog who slips out of their collar, you might consider it instead of a normal collar. The martingale is a long piece with hoops at either ends, and linking those hoops together is a circle of material where you attach the leash. When the leash pulls the circle tightens, bringing the ends of the collar together. It only tightens until they meet, so you don't worry about choking your dog, but it will also keep the collar from sliding over your dog's head.

3. A choke chain
When used properly, a choke chain is one of my favorite gizmos. Most of the time, they're used incorrectly. If you allow a choke chain to slide down your dog's neck and settle near the base, then you're pressing against the windpipe (not good), AND they pull to try and free themselves, thinking they're stuck in something and need to pull harder.

If you bring the chain up to just under your dog's jaw and just behind her ears, when you pull (sideways or up -- sideways is usually, though not always, better) the dog thinks, "I'd better stop and think about this." We want thinking dogs, not pulling dogs!

A choke chain is useless, however, if you're going to let your dog walk ahead. Then you'll just end up with a dog who's pulling, choking, and still dragging you around. Also keep in mind that with some breeds of small dogs, a choke chain can put undue pressure on those itty bitty bones. If you're worried, use something else.

4. A prong collar
A prong collar is one of those things that looks like a medieval torture device, with metal bars poking into your dog's neck. For something like pulling it is, believe it or not, one of the safest things you can use. Prong collars don't put pressure on the windpipe and they don't yank your dog's spine out of alignment. Next time you're in a pet store, wrap one around your arm and pull. You'll be surprised at how the collars don't actually hurt -- they annoy, but unless you're Sly Stallone, it's hard to cause pain with one. Even better, if you pull on your dog with a normal collar, they can lean into it and ignore you. This is much harder to lean into -- it is, after all, prickly rather than solid.

5. Face halters
DON'T DO IT! I can't say that enough when it comes to these suckers. You see them all over. They loop behind the dog's ears and over the muzzle. They work off the same principle as halters for big animals -- horses, specifically -- with one big difference: when you pull back on a horse's face, you pull into their chest. But a dog is much shorter, and when you pull on them you're twisting their head up and around. This is, according to the dog chiropractors I've spoken with, just about the best way ever to do anything from giving your dog whiplash to breaking his neck.

"But my dog doesn't pull in it, so I'll never have to worry about that!" is what I usually hear. Are you willing to bet on that if your dog is attacked by another dog? What if a cat runs across your path? Or if you're walking down a trail and your dog, sniffing to see if he can't get down the embankment to the water, loses his footing and slides?

In addition, in some dogs the harnesses lay over the nasal airways, so when you pull you're restricting their breathing, in an area much more delicate than their windpipe. So again, I say, DON'T DO IT!

6. Harnesses
There are several types of these, and I'm ambivalent about them. Some work better than others. The ones that work the best seem to be the ones where the leash is attached at the midpoint of their chest, but every time I see them I think, "They work by squeezing the shoulders and restricting leg movement, and they give the dog something to pull against -- which means the dog never learns to back off to ease the pressure, they just learn that pressure is a sad part of life. Why would I do that to my dog?"

In short, if you're going to let your dog walk ahead of you, the safest and most humane thing to use is, in my opinion, a prong collar. Short of that, a shoulder harness. (But really. Ew.) In a study done in Germany, 100 dogs were trained, 50 with choke chains and 50 with prong collars. When the dogs died (of old age), they were autopsied. It was found that 42 of the dogs trained on choke chains had stress in the spine, versus only 2 of the prong collar dogs -- and one of those was because of a hereditary problems.

Prong collars look evil, but they're not really.

On the other hand, you could just train your dog to walk beside you nicely... ;)

Jenna McDonald's Feathers and Fur

My dog is larger than I think.

Leashes and collars and harnesses, oh my!