Battle of the Headcollars - Halti vs. Gentle Leader

[SemaviLady]

What type of accidents if you don't mind me asking. PM me if it's graphic. I was considering that exact harness, but I'd never seen one used, and I knew headcollars worked well. Do you know anyone who's had success with one?

I have a website upon which there is one page that is dedicated to the prong collar. One reader that visited was Bonnie Dalzell (Borzoi) who has done postmortems on dogs and has viewed the results of collar injuries. I'll quote part of what she says here -

As an anatomist and a serious breeder I obtained thorough postmortem reports on many of my Borzois after they passed on and I was surprised to find that a number of them had healed fractures of the lateral bones of the larynx. This sort of injury narrows the opening into the trachea and, in extreme cases, could also produce respiratory insufficiency at heavy exercise.

A lateral radiograph read by some one who knows what they are looking at can reveal these injuries in a living dog.

Haltis and Easy Leaders have the potential to severely injure a dog's neck in the case of an out of control dog who bucks on the Halti. Dogs do not have the massive neck ligamentation of horses and, while their necks are stronger than ours, they still can be injured, especially if suddenly pulled up and back. Haltis do have their place in control of a powerful dog, I regularly use one on one of my best lure coursing Borzoi who has injured his trachea from his enthusiastic attempts to get at the lure while we are waiting for him to have his turn to run. However one needs to be careful that the dog does not get up speed and run to the end of a long leash while in a Halti, because the leverage on the neck that can be exerted by a high speed Halti stop could be very damaging. I would not use one on a dog working on the high obstacles of an agility course because if the dog fell from the A-frame or the elevated walk and was jerked by the Halti it could be severely injured.

In addition I have observed that since Haltis do not deliver much correction, they are good for control but not training.

I have found that a useful tool for leash breaking long necked sighthound pups without neck injury is. . . read the rest here

[Pawsitive Thinking]

Have just "googled" prong collars because I have never seen one and

While I respect everyone's choices on this thread I can't see myself ever using one on Tobey or Archie. Having said that, I am going to put a bit more effort into getting the boys to walk "nicely" instead of just ambling along behind them

[mike001]

Like I said...while they might look barbaric they are much less damaging than chokers and even Gentle leaders or Haltis...IF they are used properly.
But you're absolutely right, hard work is the better choice of any collar.