Sharky is a collar ninja, freeing herself and her siblings from their dog collars within minutes of us putting them on, then chewing them to pieces. It got to the point that we were going through 6-10 collars a month, and it was not only expensive, but just plain crazy. The collar hung was on, and I found what I thought was THE PERFECT dog collar.
These collars didn’t buckle, rather you’d tighten them after slipping them over their heads, and it was perfect. Sharky chewed through one, but only one, so we thought it was a win. We’d never had any issues until last night.
Last night, of course as our case worker is over finishing up our homestudy, doing a joint interview, touring our house, etc, we learn what a bad choice these collars were. Luna and Sherlock were placing, sitting in their beds calmly and just being great, and Padfoot and Sharky were outside playing. In the middle of her questions K and I both hear this horrible noise, these screams, that we’d never really heard before.
I head outside, and it looks like Padfoot just won’t let go of Sharky. I’m yelling at them to stop, and as I get closer I see that Padfoots lower jaw is stuck in the small loop on Sharky’s collar, and he’s literally choking her to death. He is stuck, screaming and trying to get free, and with each lurch the collar is tightening around Sharky’s neck. When I get to her her eyes are bulging and mouth foaming. The collar was so tight that I couldn’t even get scissors under it to cut it off. As K was coming closer to try and tackle Sharky and Padfoot to the ground so we could find a way to get it off Sharky lurched just right and was able to free herself. I have no idea how it didn’t break Padfoot’s jaw. Midst all of this I ended up getting bit as Sharky was fighting for her life, and I was trying to free her. So, I walked back into the house, to our case worker, with blood dripping down my hand, freaking out that we were going to fail.
Luckily she was understanding. This wasn’t a dog being mean, attacking, any of that. This was a freak accident, of me trying to save my dog and not worrying about getting bit in the process, and not being safe about it and avoiding her mouth, because I was more concerned about her being able to breathe.
We immediately removed all of these collars from our dogs, and they will now be collar-less unless we are taking them for a walk. This was, literally, one of the scariest experiences of my life. As soon as my case worker left I started crying, as I had time to process what just happened. I barely slept, listening for Sharky breathing and for Padfoot chewing on his bone. They are both fine, we’ve checked them thoroughly, and they are eating, playing, and acting like their normal selves, but we will never be using these collars again.
They are probably great if you have only one dog in the home, seriously, before this happened these were our favorite, but please, please be so careful if you have more than one dog, and are using these.
Photo by Chloe Epperson Photography
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