If Your Dog Pulls...

[mbsqw1d]

If this post changes one dog owner's mind to change from a lead to a harness then that's cool.

I had a dog. Sparky. (after Mark Hughes (when he was at united ) ) He was a mental mongrel.. erm, a cross of a Cocker Spaniel and a Collie. A beautiful, clever yet mental little dog . From his first 'walkies' he was on a lead / leash and no matter how we tried to train him not to pull.. he was determined to pull himself there and back!
And so it continued, it became kind of normal that he just.. pulled!(if only you knew then what you know now! )
He never showed signs of uncomfort or pain from his own pulling, and whenever we walked to the field we let him off to run like mad until home time and then once again.. he would pull us home..

When Sparky turned 10 years old, when we got to the point in his walkies where he went for a free run, he started to lose breath and lie down and sometimes he was even sick. This continued and worsened.

After a trip to the vets, he was eventually x-rayed and the horror of his injuries became apparent.
There are C-shaped bones/cartilage that make up the wind pipe, and through Sparky's pulling, one of these pieces had become damaged and permanently closed therefore restricting his breathing when he needed it most.
The operation to fix this had a survival rate of about 5-10%.

Sparky was put on a course of anti-inflammatories which he had for the rest of his days. It became really awful at the point where whenever Sparky became excited (walkies, food, coming home to see him) he would lose his breathe and struggle to get his breathing right and in turn it would make him sick. It was the saddest thing to witness and NOT the life for a dog.

You may all be saying how stupid I was for not thinking sooner and putting him in a harness but like I said, if I could change one thing that would be it. Every time I see someone walking a dog that is pulling on a lead I feel like telling them. If you have read this and your dog pulls.. please consider a harness

Sadly Sparky was euthanised 11/09/08
Thanks

 

[Socks]

Sorry Sparky had to go before his time.
I'll say,It was very,very,very hard to train our dog not to pull,but now she doesn't even need a leash,she'll go no further than 6 feet from me unless I give her the go ahead.It's a good idea to run them on a harness instead of a collar anyhow.

 

[Ludwig Venter]

If this post changes one dog owner's mind to change from a lead to a harness then that's cool.

Every time I see someone walking a dog that is pulling on a lead I feel like telling them. If you have read this and your dog pulls.. please consider a harness

Sadly Sparky was euthanised 11/09/08
Thanks

Now there are 3 warnings to the rest of us!!..... Sharing an experience like this can only be of benefit to the rest of us. Every person reading this would never have known just how detrimental an ordinary neck collar can be over the long term..... so Sparky did not die in vain..... Thanks for sharing.

 

[VickiandKev]

I'm so sorry to hear about this RIP Sparky.

I would definitely re-iterate that it's important to either work hard with a sliplead when your dog is young to teach them to walk properly on a lead, or else use a harness.
I also don't like to see people use a flexi-lead with a collar, it should really be used with a harness as it creates tension on the neck and will desensitise a dog to pressure on it's neck.
I never use a normal lead and collar. Only ever a sliplead when Skye needs to heel or a harness if she's on her flexi.

It's scary the number of people you see with a normal collar and lead, or even a sliplead, allowing their dog to drag them down the road with the poor dog choking all the way.