# Recommended Choke Collar - But I am hesitant to use it - help!



## JWEX (Dec 13, 2010)

Hi All,

I have posted on this site before about my female havanese, Duffy. Duffy is now a year and 3 months old and is usually the sweetest dog. However, she has a lot of bad behaviors (digging, chewing on things, scratching at doors, etc). However, we recently paid a trainer a lot of money to come to our apartment because Duffy has been resource guarding. She has bitten my husband twice and drawn blood. It is always when she finds something that she thinks is a "prize" and we try to take it from her. We've been exchanging for a treat which has been working, but recently she started getting agressive when we put on or take off her winter coat. We can't exchange the coat for a treat since it's on her body so my husband had to put gloves on to take the coat off without getting bitten. Duffy doesn't listen to "no" and although positive reinforcement works in the moment, she still gets agressive every time she's guarding something.

So, we called a trainer in, and she suggested we use a choke collar to correct her every time she's agressive. I am VERY hesitant about doing this and wanted to see if anyone has ever tried this method. Does this hurt the dog? This is the last thing I would want to do. The trainer demonstrated with Duffy and she seemed really shell shocked - she even crawled in my lap which made me think she was scared. 

Please help. We are hoping to start a family in the next year and we can't have a biting dog in the house. But, the last thing I want to do is hurt Duffy or have to give her up. Any recommendations are greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.


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## TilliesMom (Sep 30, 2010)

WOW. oh HECK no. Please don't use a choke collar... things could go from bad to WORSE in a hurry. and it could severely damage her throat, not to mention your relationship with her! Hopefully Dave here on the forum can guide you to a REAL trainer who will help you train your sweetie and not hurt and scare her!!!


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## JWEX (Dec 13, 2010)

Thanks. I knew I had a bad feeling about this for a reason. I am so upset by this experience. This trainer got great reviews and is supposed to be reputable. I really don't know what to do, and now feel like I wasted so much money. If anyone has any suggestions on how to best train Duffy, please let me know.


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## lfung5 (Jun 30, 2007)

I think Dave will chime in. I don't think the choke collar is a good idea either. She is so young to be acting so aggressive. Because she is young, I bet it's not too late to change that bad behavior. Good luck!


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## DonnaC (Jul 31, 2011)

I'm not an expert, but it seems to me a choke collar is just going to make angry/frustrated/scared and therefore more likely to behave erratically -- either more aggressively or overly submissively.


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## Luciledodd (Sep 5, 2009)

Used properly you won't hurt the dog, but since it is a havanese and not a great dane a regular collar works just fine. The object to to pull the dog sideways, not hard or jerky, just pull the dog off it gait. It is the holder of the leash that makes this work. I rarely put a collar on Rosie, I use a harness again rarely. but if she gets ahead of me when we are walking or stops to inspect something and I don't want her to, I just tug on the leash sideways. It always works. I can't really use Rosie, she is just too gentle. But the little schnauzers--now they had attitude. If they snarled at me or snapped at me because I went to take their food for instance, then I usually did a "hey" in a stern voice and then moved in with my foot and pushed them away. I never ever let them get away with whatever they were guarding. I took them with me everywhere and therefore used a collar--small choke chain--just for the ease of putting on and taking off. I kept it attached to the leash and the weight of it is no more that a leather collar. They work the same as any slip on leash and should be just under their jaws and above the tracea--holding the head up like show dogs. Yeah you could hurt your baby with one, but then you can hurt them with any collar.


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## Becky Chittenden (Feb 4, 2009)

I don't see what good a choke collar would do in this situation, it is the behavior you want to change. I have no experience with this type of behavior and offer no help there. I'm not adverse to choke collars, use them myself when showing a dog, jewelry link very fine chain for the Collies and Shelties and nylon for the Havanese, but don't jerk on them. They learn different type of little tugs mean different things like slow down, readjust your stance, etc. Good luck.


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## davetgabby (Dec 29, 2007)

You should have trusted your instincts when you saw the choke collar. I'll spare you the dangers of choke collars. This is a case for a trainer ,but not one of this nature. If you want help finding one I can help . email me privately. Please take this serious, I wouldn't delay. For now don't try to take anything away from your dog and make sure no people will either. Here is a research article by IPDTA on choke collars. http://www.ipdta.org/choke-chains.html Six pages


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## davetgabby (Dec 29, 2007)

All dogs can resource guard . Natural as the day is long. Here is the second best thing to read other than Jean's book MINE. http://www.4pawsu.com/Donaldson.pdf I would love to know the rational behind thinking a choke collar had a place in modifying a dog with resource guarding issues. ??? Scary. And another piece from Jean.

FALLACIES ABOUT
RESOURCE GUARDING
There are several common fallacies
about resource guarding that cloud
our understanding and, thus, our
approaches to treatment of this
common behavior problem.
1. It is abnormal behavior.
Guarding food, coveted objects,mates, and physical space are highly
adaptive traits in a natural environment.
If dogs had to fend for themselves
tomorrow, guarders would
have the survival and reproductive
edge over nonguarders.
2. Because it is largely genetically
driven, rather than learned, it is
immutable.
This fallacy is not limited to
resource guarding. While it is true
that genetics can make certain
behaviors easier to learn in some
cases, or interfere
with learning in other
cases, there is no neat
correlation between
how much a behavior
is thought to be
genetically influenced
and its susceptibility
to behavior
modification.
3. It can be cured by
making the dog
realize that
resources are
abundant.
The idea behind this fallacy is that
all we have to do is convince the
dog that there are no reasons to
guard because resources are
plentiful (by providing a plethora of
toys, treats, and chewies). Alas, it
would seem that dogs were
snoozing in logic class. They do not
learn this way.
4. It is a symptom of dominance.
This fallacy is largely a legacy of the
pervasiveness of social hierarchy
models as explanation for dog
behavior, as well as springboards fortreatment techniques. Most dog
owners have sketchy, if any, understanding
of the most basic techniques
of operant and classical conditioning.
Yet, virtually all owners throw
around the word "dominance" with
abandon. Rank as the reason for
resource guarding has also provided
decades of quasi-justification for the
use of aversives in training.
In actuality, resource guarding
responds well to desensitization,
counterconditioning, and wellexecuted
operant techniques, which
raises questions about dominance:
• When the dog stops guarding,
has he become less dominant as
a result of the desensitization
and counterconditioning? If so,
by what mechanism?
• Is rank, therefore, not a fixed
trait? If not, can one still say a
dog is a "dominant" dog?
• If dominance is a relationship
rather than a trait, how could
simple desensitization/
counterconditioning exercises
change the relationship?
The behaviorist paradigm provides
a much simpler way to describe
post-treatment behavior. That is,
rather than expending energy on
why the behavior exists, the behaviorist
concentrates on changing the
behavior.
5. It is a result of "spoiling" the dog.
Guarding crops up in dogs with all
kinds of life histories. "Spoiled" is
also a very subjective term. I am
dismayed that people label dogs
spoiled simply because the dog's
basic needs are being met, they are
well loved, and their lives are
relatively free of aversives.


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## Tom King (Aug 2, 2006)

I'm of the same opinion on choke collars as the old saying about stud chains on horse halters. If the handler has good enough hands to use one, he doesn't need it.

As far as any trainer recommending a choke collar on a ( especially small) dog, I'd keep looking.


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## JWEX (Dec 13, 2010)

Thanks all. These comments are so helpful! Hopefully with the right trainer, Duffy will stop her resource guarding or at least we will know how to better handle it. Thanks again!


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