Preventing Injury to Your Dogs Neck

When it comes to choosing supplies for your puppy one thing that you may want to consider is buying a harness instead of a collar.

Yorkshire Terriers, Yorkichons and Cavachons are very small when you will bring them home at the age of 8 weeks.  Their necks are also very fragile.  When you put a collar on a small dog, even when they are full grown, it is much easier for them to suffer a neck injury than if you were to use a harness.

My boyfriends family was walking their miniature pinscher in the park about three years ago right around Christmas.  He was wearing a collar.  A larger dog approached him and Rufus, the miniature pinscher, jerked on his collar as the larger dog came towards him.  He seemed fine and they continued their walk and returned home.  That evening Rufus was having trouble walking, was falling when he tried to get up and wasn’t able to jump on the furniture like he had been in the morning.  His family rushed him to the veterinarian’s office where they found that he had injured his spine and was suffering from internal bleeding in his brain.  They did not think he was going to make it through the night.

Rufus did make it through that night and was able to come home but to this day, three years later, his one front paw is still paralyzed.  He falls over sometimes when he is excited and he isn’t able to run or jump like he was before the injury.  All of this could have been prevented if he had been wearing a harness instead of a collar.

In my opinion, putting a harness on your small dog can prevent many injuries from occurring and can help you to have piece of mind that your puppy or dog will be able to enjoy all of their outdoor activities with less risk of being injured.