skinnydipper
Well-Known Member

Collars risk causing neck injuries in dogs, study shows | Nottingham Trent University
Collars risk causing neck injuries in dogs as they pull on the lead or the lead is jerked by the owner, new research suggests.
Harnesses are not really a lot better especially as people seen to think they are fine regardless of fit.
The front pull harnesses create a constant twist in the dogs frame and effect the whole body constantly.
Like anything fitted to any animal incorrect fit or use does harm
My childhood labrador’s harness caused friction and we ended up with fatty lumps under it. Parents thought a harness would be kinder… I sorted out her training one holiday for them and she was fine in a collar after that.
I mean…surely this is a training issue? I have rarely ever had to pull on a dog’s collar once beyond initial training. It’s there, on the end of the lead, but it’s not doing anything - like the pony the on the end of my lead rope. Following me because those are the rules, no pressure required.
I am not sure I’d be able to find them but there has been a load of studies on harnesses.This study is about collars.
Could you share some studies which look at the risk of harm from wearing a harness, please.
? start a new thread re harnesses
Druid it is purely my fault I have let her get away with this. She is extremely stubborn and excitable and terrier like and all my other dogs have always walked nicely from the go get when taught. She has the nicest nature in every way except the excitement at the start of a walk. It took me 9 months to house train her, she took ages to learn sit, stay, off, etc and she is pretty good now. It is the beginning of the walk only and TBH I will just use a little harness the first few minutes. She weighs 6K so not difficult to hold onto and she has a winter coat with an inbuilt harness that she walks on better than a collar in very wet weather so i will cop out and just put the harness on. After 5 minutes I can transfer to collar and she will be fine. She is lucky to have a lot of time off lead too. Oddly her recall is pretty reliable, it is just the pulling at the start. I accept I am a bad owner![]()
I thought this was already well known. I've been using mainly harnesses on my dogs ever since I went to a lecture by the Swedish dog behaviourist/psychologist Anders Hallgren already back in 1994, and came home with among other things his then newly published small book (32 pages) Back problems in dogs (I think it's available in English with that exact title). It's based on a study he did in 1991 on 400 Swedish dogs, and 91% of the dogs that either had been pulled hard on while wearing leash + collar, or themselves had been pulling hard in their leash + collar, had some sort of damage in their necks.
Why was a study needed to prove that putting anything around a dog's neck and then jerking it or allowing the dog to pull at it could cause neck injuries? Have academics been paid to do this stuff?
There’s idealism and there’s the real world.
But would t it have been worse if they’d no control at all?I live in the real world and I see people yanking on their dog's lead and being towed about by a dog wearing a collar, and even a slip lead - fat lab pulled his owner across the road to see me.