Lead and collar

Just a quick question, Bought Babs a collar and lead the other day and for the life of me I cannot get her to keep the collar on. She scratches until it comes off. Should I get her a collar that will not come off and hope she stops scratching before she hurts herself or just continue and be persistent until she stops?

Suki tried everything to get hers off as well at first. We just kept putting it on and leaving it on at longer intervals and she got used to it. Be sure to supervise though so it doesn't get caught on something.

Yes, just persevere. Every time you put it on her give her a fuss, some treats, have a good game with her. Same thing every time she starts to scratch at it. Just put it on for 5 minutes, take it off. Next time put it on for 10 minutes, take it off....I'm sure you get the picture!

Wilko wrote:Just a quick question, Bought Babs a collar and lead the other day and for the life of me I cannot get her to keep the collar on. She scratches until it comes off. Should I get her a collar that will not come off and hope she stops scratching before she hurts herself or just continue and be persistent until she stops?

How I do this is to have the collar fastened so it is too big, the pup can put their head through it without any problems, I put my hand with a treat through the collar and let the pup take the treat. Gradually I don't put my hand through as much until I don't put it through, the pup has to put her nose through the collar. Gradually let her put her head through further and further until it is behind her ears.

When she is happy with this, I place the collar on her neck then take it off again. I keep doing this but count to 2 at first, then 5 then 10 and so on until my put is happy to have the collar on, then I reduce the size to what it should be.

I do this for about 5 minutes every hour, it is surprising how quickly a pup will accept a collar.

I work similer to this when teaching a dog to wear a muzzle or head collar.

Loki did this too, and I found that playing games with him and doing some training got him used to it quickly. Course, it was all new to him so when he was settled he'd still be irritated by it, but he got used to it.

I found that playing games and a little training worked with Bella as well. It distracted her from the collar and she got used to it quite quickly.