Almost any piece of training equipment can be misused or fitted inappropriately to the point of causing pain/discomfort/injury. Flat collars can collapse a trachea on a small dog if the dog pulls all the time or lunges like a maniac. Front-hook harnesses that aren’t properly fit (and some that are) can rub a raw spot under the armpits if the dog pulls consistently or lunges frequently. Poorly fitted back-hook harnesses can still cause choking and can even cause sores because of the excess rubbing.

So yes, I get it, almost anything can cause issues when misused or poorly fit. There are, however, some things that I saw at the pet expo last weekend that absolutely blew my mind.

First was this bully breed that was wearing a prong collar… INSIDE OUT!!! (See the image to the left) In a ridiculously crowded venue with thousands and thousands of people, the dog’s owner felt it was a good idea to have his dog walking around with the metal spikes sticking out from the dog’s collar. I saw this dog pulling his owners around like crazy because it was no longer inhibited by the pain/discomfort of the collar. What was the scariest thing is when I saw the dog walk right next to a toddler in a stroller–the inside out collar was so close to the baby’s dangling leg and it had me really concerned. What if the collar scratched the child and the child kicked/screamed in pain–how would the dog respond? I later saw this same dog jump up on someone and scratch them in the arm with the pointy prongs of the collar.

It is really inappropriate and DANGEROUS to everyone around to have a dog wearing a prong collar inside out. I actually saw this at a dog park once and just stood there shaking my head–I get wanting to keep the dog safer so they turn the collar inside out so if it snags on something it won’t hurt the dog as much BUT they are risking every other dog in the park!

I saw choke chains upside down (yes there is a ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ way to put on a choke chain) on many dogs but it was particularly cringe-worthy when that choke chain was being used on a teeny tiny doxie/chi mix of sorts. For those of you who only run big dogs or who don’t know, tiny dogs have extra delicate necks and using a collar, even a flat collar, for a dog who pulls, can cause a potentially deadly injury called a collapsed trachea. One leash pop or a small amount of continuous pulling on a choke chain can collapse the trachea of a tiny dog easily. I’m of the opinion that tiny dogs should not be walked on collars of any kind due to the pressure it puts on their necks–harnesses of almost any kind should be the preferred equipment.

I have even generally stopped walking Shayne on a collar because I want to keep her neck safe if she were to have a reaction and lunge against the leash/collar. It happens very rarely, but I would feel horrible if she really hurt herself lunging with a collar around her neck. Having a harness also allows me to maneuver her in a way that wouldn’t be safe to do so with a collar on. Rio’s so great on a leash wit a collar that he hardly ever has tension and it’s never hard tension but still, I’ve been searching for a harness that may fit his funny shape.

Perhaps the scariest thing I saw (besides two people who had dogs on prong collars connected to flexi-leashes) was a parent hand the leash of one of her dogs over to her 5 or 6 year old kid. The dog was on a choke chain (on backwards) and was probably 35lbs (not too much smaller than the kid!) and was pulling and twisting up the leash when the mom was holding it (along with another dog). So the mom was getting tangled and handed the leash over to the little girl. Great idea right? If it wasn’t bad enough that she put a 5 or 6 year old in charge of a dog who was not well trained in the first place but the daughter than started ‘whipping’ the dog with the leash. The dog looked back like “What the…!? Who the…!??” and then just plowed forward dragging the girl behind him (she was still swinging the leash and smacking him). She was young and small and probably wasn’t hurting the dog horribly, simply because she lacked the power, but who knows how long the dog was going to tolerate that treatment before snapping at another dog, or person, or the child, or would just pull the kid over and run.