I love your avatar Thanks for the LOL

Thanks also for the very important reminder to all puppy owners. It is so important not to have collars for those dogs who like to play together.

We took our collars off. However now that my senior dog no longer plays with my younger one we have adopted a magnetic collar for her health. My younger dog remains 'naked'.

My two always have their collars on. I don't want to have to remember to put them on every time I kick them out to go potty. I don't want to risk them getting out of the yard and not having a collar on.

My golden use to destroy my labs collars but she has gotten a lot better about it now.

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I use breakaway collars the ones that don't have too heavy duty of a clip closure and I keep them on the looser side. They always have them on. All of my dogs including all 11 of my shelties wore them and despite much wrestling I never had a problem with them getting caught on a mouth but saw one of dogs catch it on a gate as we went thru one quick twist and it broke at the connector like it was supposed to. I Do not use them for walking obviously as I would not want to risk a breakaway lol.
My friends dog got out an open door as someone came in, he was microchipped but had no collar on. Someone did find him about a week later but liked him and did not return him afterall he had no collar on. Some 8 months later he got loose and got picked up by animal control he had the collar on from the new home but they thankfully scanned the dog and saw another name. Since she had turned in a missing dog report she was able to get him back, the other person stated she thought he was a stray since he had no collar. This way she had a lovely trained dog for free and no she never saw any of those flyers. I like the breakaways as a secondary protection if needed they do break.

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Boots, Sparkles and Tink Bridge dogs, Tuffy, Blueboy, Pudge, Maddie, Broker, Jet, Baily, and Reva

There are so many pro's and con's to this question it's hard to call. Fortunately, in this case anyway, I don't have two dogs living with me. But I grew up in a family that always had two dogs, English Setters, and they always had their collar's on - never a problem.

My concerns for leaving the collar on include:

Tangling when the dogs play indoors or outdoors...I've never seen this happen but it's still a big concern.

The collar getting caught on something either indoors or outdoors...I've seen both happen.

My concerns for leaving them off include:

Should the dogs get away they no longer have that immediate identification of my phone number & name. Even though Woody is chipped he may not get scanned by the person who might find him.

Should he be picked up by animal control without tags & a collar this would decrease my chances of seeing him again.

I think the bottom line is a lot depends on the kind of dog you have, does he stay with you no matter what, what kind of play level does he have when he interacts with other dogs, are you always with the dog or is he by himself from time to time?

I try to evaluate each sistuation and respond accordingly...sometimes yes...sometimes no.

One thing I will never do is leave my dog in a kennel with the collar on.

Pete

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Sonny, the black lab, ran ahead to make sure there were no gophers or jackrabbits in the way. If you don't give a dog a specific job, he'll improvise one for himself and it will invariably be fun. There's a lesson there.
John Gierach

Both Tayla and Jesse and Cheyenn when she was alive, wear collars that are very loose. They slip easily over their heads so if caught they have never had issues. If I grab them by their collars they could pull their head out rather easily. As I said Jesse and Tayla don't play because of their age differences, but Jesse and Cheyenne played for years and roughly in the house and we never had an issue. My fear, as stated, was them getting out. We had a neighbor whose Lab never wore a collar and got out often. One July 4th he got out, got hit be a car and thrown into a retention pond by a park across the street. A week later his body was discovered and it was only by accident that she heard about it. How terrible not to be contacted so at least have your dog back for proper cremation/burial, etc.

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Barb, Rick and Tayla (STAR Puppy)



Cheyenne (CGC) and Jesse (CGC) who will be always loved and never forgotten.

Collars are off unless we go for a walk or training in our house. My two are young and constantly playing with each other. When younger we tried leaving them on but Kye got a puppy tooth caught and when Coop pulled back it broke the puppy tooth and Vet had to extract the nub. I just keep their collars clipped to their leashes so when I unhook the leash the collar is neatly hanging with it. I want to get the break-away collars because I like the look of a collar on a dog, but must wait until my two gain more maturity, but someday I hope we will be able to leave collars on.

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NEVER
I have had to cut collars off of Connor and Cuinn in the past... i had just bought them new collars and was just fitting them.... I had put connors new collar on him... adjusted it... and he ran off into the living room. I was following him and by the time I got there Cuinns jaw was stuck in the collar and it was twisted and connor was choking... I ran and got the scissors and cut it off....

a couple weeks later a friend has leather collars and was away at her house in vermont and she had those flat brass id bars on her collars and one of her dogs got their canines caught under the bar and was choking the other... after much struggle we got them apart and the two dogs never trusted each other again....

finally just a short time after that a year old flat coat puppy died when the other dog got tangled in her collar... by the time the owner got the scissors and got out there the puppy was dead.

my dogs never wear collars in the house or when they are playing... nor do they wear them at the kennel or at daycare or if we go to the dog park....

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Shalva and the Milbrose Retrievers and Irish Wolfhound
Milbrose Retrievers and Irish Wolfhounds

Mine always wear collars

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I do what I like and like what I do. Yorkies- Cozy (4/1/06), Roxy & Zoey (2/11/08), Lucy (4/6/09); Golden- Buddy (4/13/09- Rescued 12/11) Maine Coon cats- Mika (1998) and Tallulah (2000)

Its funny I have never really thought about it, I have always kept their collars on as just an automatic thing.
I can however see both sides of this interesting dilema. Makes me think twice about it, althougth both of their collars are loose enough to be able to get out of if necessary you still never know. hhhmmmm......

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My seven! only wear collars when out and about or training OR outside to do their business and wear invisible fence collars...

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Janice and The Celebration Gang -
"Samantha, George, Tiki, Emily, Mick and Basil" Gone but not forgotten, Sally(Windjammer's Ima Country Girl CDX CGC), Laney(Mandell Marlenes Celebration UD RA CGC), and Cookie(Starseeker's Kissmas Cookie CDX RE CGC).