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Question from an owner with a new 10 week old Yorkie:
She is wondering what kind of collar to use on the tiny one to obedience train. As of now she has no collar on his itsy bitsy neck. She has considered a harness.
Answer:
It is difficult to give a dog directional steering with a harness. For this reason I use a collar. However you must not give collar corrections to a toy dog - beware of tracheal damage. The recommended way to give corrections is to tug downward on the leash. This is physically impossible with a tiny toy dog. Further, I see lots of people dragging their toy dogs. The dog’s legs are rigid and his feet are sliding over the linoleum. Note that when the dog heels wide or lags, if you jerk the tiny fellow toward your clomping, monster feet he will naturally want to resist.
I believe that it should be possible to train a very young puppy without the use of a collar and leash. See my section on training with food. In the case of a toy, I would begin by placing the dog on a table and teach the "sit," "down," and "stand" while he is at my level. You may place a collar and leash on the dog if you fear that he might fall off of the table. I do not believe that my dog would have learned to "finish" (go to heel) if I had not used food.
Leashes and Clips:
Leashes and clips tend to cause interference with a dog's face or knees. If the slip (choke) collar is too long, the clip of the leash tends to hit the dog in the knee. In the case of the toy dog with a buckle collar, the clip of the leash will hit the dog in the face. I do not like thin chain collars.
I use two leash/collar configurations on my Yorkie:
1) A 3/8 inch collar with a snap style buckle permanently attached to a Flexi-leash from which the clip has been removed.
2) A 3/8 inch leash, four or six feet long, from which the buckle has been replaced with a split ring. No collar is needed as this combines leash with slip collar.
To correct lunging at other dogs:
I did use a micro-prong collar for one month. I since have discovered the "shaker can." This is effective with my dog.
Sylvia's Tack Box specializes in small dog equipment including Micro Prong Collars. (Also,
here
and
here.)
She also carries Competitive Obedience Training for the Small Dog
by Barbara Cecil and Gerianne Darnell.
"Training a small or toy dog is quite different than the big dog training."
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