I know that many of you are strong proponents of harnesses but I was listening to a podcast this morning in the car that made me ponder on whether harnesses are less punishing than collars.
Just to make this clear I’m not starting an argument and I use a harness myself on my puppies and young dogs to differentiate getting from a to b against practising heel walking.
But listening to this I was left wondering if it’s just us that perceive harnesses as kinder and not dogs. I was thinking about the fact that you almost never hear of dogs refusing or finding collars punishing, whereas often people have a struggle to put their dogs into harnesses. Does the fact that we can hear the dogs breathing change when pulling on a collar make us more aware? Why do so many dogs suddenly decide that they no longer want to wear a harness and why are so many people ending up counter conditioning harnesses?
Does any one else have slight misgivings? I’ll try and find a link to the podcast, but is seriously geeky.
Just to make this clear I’m not starting an argument and I use a harness myself on my puppies and young dogs to differentiate getting from a to b against practising heel walking.
But listening to this I was left wondering if it’s just us that perceive harnesses as kinder and not dogs. I was thinking about the fact that you almost never hear of dogs refusing or finding collars punishing, whereas often people have a struggle to put their dogs into harnesses. Does the fact that we can hear the dogs breathing change when pulling on a collar make us more aware? Why do so many dogs suddenly decide that they no longer want to wear a harness and why are so many people ending up counter conditioning harnesses?
Does any one else have slight misgivings? I’ll try and find a link to the podcast, but is seriously geeky.