Harness v Collar

A few months ago, a story published in New Scientist claimed that dogs generally pull about 60 per cent harder on a leash when wearing a padded harness compared with a collar, even when the equipment is marketed as “anti-pull” – putting the people walking them at risk of injury.

Some dogs – especially smaller breeds – pull with a force more than twice their body weight on the collar, potentially damaging their throats, says Erin Perry at Southern Illinois University.

“It’s really very shocking,” she says. “The dogs are almost choking themselves on that collar repeatedly. But the harnesses in our study just didn’t inhibit pulling in any way, and that’s definitely a wake-up call – especially because of the risk to owners.”

For me, this reinforced a few principles that I have been talking about for a while:

1.)   No piece of equipment is perfect and anything that seems too good to be true probably is.

2.)   Different dogs react differently to different pieces of equipment, so some trial and error should be expected.

3.)   Owners need to consider their own lead skills and not get fixated on a particular piece of kit.

Regardless of the equipment being used, continuous tension on the lead is not what we are aiming for. If your dog has a good grasp of loose-lead walking, it doesn’t matter what you are using.