Collars

S

sheltielover

Forums Regular
I have my Bailey in training,"The Good Neighbor Program". I am having difficulty finding a collar that stays on. I use a chain choke collar when I walk him. I am very careful not to pull and he just walks along side me whenever I do walk him. But when we get to his class with the other dogs we are not allowed to use a choke collar- only material. All the collars we have tried, even the Martingale comes off him. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated! There are several large dogs in his class that he needs to stay away from:)
Thanks so much
 
sheltielover said:
IAll the collars we have tried, even the Martingale comes off him.
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How are you fitting your martingale?

A properly fitted martingale should not come off.

What does your trainer recommend that you use? Would you be able to use a gentle leader in class?
 
Tell your obedience instructor that Shelties have lean skulls and lots of hair. Choke collars are perfectly fine for training, especially for small headed dogs. She should not be requiring collars that you know the dog can slip.

Martingales should not slip. You should be able to only get two fingers under the collar, it should not dangle at all.
 
I use a martingale collar and, as everyone else has stated, it will not come off when its properly fitted to the dog. If he slipped the martingale its too loose.

Usually when I fit a martingale I fit it to just slip over the head when its fully "open". I then tighten the collar by gently putting on the loop, "closing" the collar, and lift it up behind the ears. the two rings on the larger loop should come just short of touching one another and it shouldn't go any further forward than a fingers width or two behind the ears. (I hope that explanation makes sense.)
 
ClantyreSheltie said:
Tell your obedience instructor that Shelties have lean skulls and lots of hair. Choke collars are perfectly fine for training, especially for small headed dogs. She should not be requiring collars that you know the dog can slip.

Martingales should not slip. You should be able to only get two fingers under the collar, it should not dangle at all.
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That's not the point of not allowing choke collars, the problem is most people don't know how to use them properly. I personally don't allow them in my classes either. I only allow prong collars if they've taken an extra class with me to learn how to put it on and how to use it.


Also I agree with the martingale, It won't come off if it fits properly. It might be too big, a right sized collar will just barely fit over the dogs head so that when it goes taught it is skin tight. or fur tight in our case ;)
 
I started out with harnesses for both my boys as puppies and they worked well. Now that they are big boys, I have started on Martingale collars and they are doing very well. I have not had any issues with them coming off and if they decide to pull they stop themselves. I can also keep them on with tag which I do not feel comfortable with having them without a form of ID on at all times.

Donna
 
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