Pink Dog Collar

“Why do I have this befuddled look on my face?  Well, I’m confused. Is it really OK for me, a macho bit of a dog, to wear a pink dog collar? OK, it isn’t solid pink, so it has that going for it. But do you not see flowers around my furry little neck? Ern’t flowers a girlie thing? I’m anything but girlie. You should see me herd sheep!”

That’s what it seems my little fellow, Dudley, is saying in this picture right after I put the Flower Power collar by Lupine on him.

I love this collar because of it’s versatile colors. Pink, blue, green flowers against a dark blue background. More importantly, this particular model of collar is a quick release, which is my favorite type of collar. Dudley, the fellow in the picture, is an avid rough-houser and gets into all sorts of play matches with canine friends of his. If there were a case of needing to get his collar off while he were caught in the middle of play, perhaps another dog’s mouth catches on his collar, I would have a much better chance of getting this quick-release collar off him than a buckle collar. Never mind choke collars!

I know for a fact canine collar strangulations happen more often than one would think. I have two close friends which both had close calls with their dogs. One dog was playing with another, and the other’s jaw caught on the collar. I remember one telling me her dog’s eyes had rolled back into its head by the time she got the collar off. There was no way to get scissors down the collar because it was so tight against the dog. Mind you the other dog was thrashing and panicking with the collar wrapped around its jaw. My friend was lucky the quick release was not in the second dog’s mouth. She felt her way around the dog’s neck and found the latch. It was no piece of cake to release, but she struggled and managed to press the latch together thus releasing the collar. The dog survived. My second friend, who lives across the country, had a similar situation happen to her and her two dogs. It’s not uncommon.  How fortunate that both dog owners watch their dogs when they’re out in the yard playing. Imagine if not! In such a situation, seconds count.

When dogs actively play, the collar catching in another dog’s mouth is a very real possibility. I’ve seen my own dogs grab each other by the collar. Isn’t that what the collar’s there for? At least from a dog’s perspective. The collar’s a convenient handle for a dog to use. And because our dogs don’t know any better, we have to be one step ahead of the what-if’s.

As for Dudley, he’s a happening dude, who lives everyday actively, and playfully. And he may prefer a pink dog collar minus the pink. But whatever collar he wears, it will definitely be one with a quick-release.