What in the World is a Woodhouse Collar?

Often referred to but never explicitly defined, the "Woodhouse Collar" is an extinct training tool that is best described as a choke chain with bigger, noisier links. I had read glowing recommendations for this collar in training books in the mid-1990's, including a vague mention of the collar being attached in a manner that prevented it from tightening. Never had I seen such a thing in a store, nor could I figure out just what it was. Surely not a regular choke chain, right?

This is not a real Woodhouse collar.

Nope, it seems to be basically a choke chain. From descriptions it seems the links were not quite as big as on a "fur saver" type chain collar, which doesn't work very well as a correction collar because the links are too big to get a really good pop. Nor were the links as small as those found in a standard check chain.

The links in a Woodhouse collar were o-shaped, and big enough to attach a leash clip through. The live ring could be pulled until the collar was tight enough to not slip off, and then the leash could be clipped to both the live ring and any link along the collar to keep it at the correct size without tightening or loosening. Protection sport people still do this with fur saver collars.

I have not been able to find a picture of an actual Woodhouse collar, but I did manage to find a chain with big enough links to snap my Stibbar lead to both the live ring and a random link. I'm pretty sure this is how the Woodhouse collar was "buckled back on itself". That particular description threw me off for years though, as I kept trying to find a chain collar with an actual buckle.

The Woodhouse collar was designed by Barbara Woodhouse, a TV dog trainer in the 1980's that used very similar methods to a current TV dog trainer. I like to use this to explain how far we've come in the art of dog training, and how far the Dog Whisperer has set things back for the general public.

Barbara Woodhouse also wrote a book, No Bad Dogs, that was published in 1982. I read it in 1992 and even when I was fully-versed in dominance theory and bought the whole thing, I found her methods appalling. Her training strategy in the book could be summed up in a single sentence: "Put a choke chain on the dog, and pop the leash until the problem goes away." This was applied to such varied situations as teaching dogs to sit, to forcing them to conquer their fears. The part that has stuck in my mind for decades is the bit where she described taking a poodle that was extremely nervous around vehicular traffic, and standing on a divider of a busy road cranking the choke chain repeatedly until the dog stopped looking scared. Nope, nope, nope.

Nowadays we call that "flooding", as in flooding the dog with a scary stimulus until the part of its brain that can be scared just gives up and shuts off for a bit, coupled with aversion training to teach the dog to stop acting fearful and hide those feelings away to avoid getting hurt. Nobody well-educated in dog behavior would use this sort of method due to the possibility of the poodle ending up even more fearful of cars without giving any warning signs.

The Woodhouse collar fell out of favor and out of production sometime in the mid-90's, I believe. At least one book published in 1992 heavily recommended them, but the collar was largely unknown when I went looking for one in 2002.

If you came here to figure out what the heck a Woodhouse collar is, I hope you found the answer you were looking for. If anyone has a picture of an authentic Woodhouse collar, I would be delighted to share a picture with the world.

Choke Chains: Not Actually for Strangling Your Dog

The choke chain, or check chain, is one of the most commonly used training collars, and one of the most abused. It is my least favorite training device because it is the only one I know of that causes harm when used both properly and improperly.

Photo by Erin Koski

How to Use a Choke Chain
A properly used choke chain is almost always loose. Unlike a prong collar, which should be adjusted to fit snugly, a choke chain should be several inches larger than the dog's neck.

The correct way to use a choke chain is to give a correction when the dog is not performing the desired action. A correction is given by giving the leash a sharp jerk, pulling the chain tight to hurt the dog's neck. Dr. Sophia Yin describes the proper technique here in more detail, it requires quite a bit of leverage and actually twisting the body to apply enough force. During a proper choke chain correction, some of the dog's feet may actually leave the ground. Once the dog has experienced this sort of pain, a light collar pop is often enough of a reminder.

Using a choke chain on a dog that pulls on the leash should look like this: dog walks to end of leash, handler gives almighty yank of doom, dog walks to end of leash, handler gives almighty yank of doom, dog becomes wary of hitting the end of the leash and learns to walk nicely OR ELSE. Next time dog becomes excited and hits the end of the leash, the handler can give them a light snap to see if they remember how to walk nicely, before resorting to the almighty yank of doom. Overall, the dog should experience a small number of hard yanks, and a lot of small pops while learning how to walk on leash.

Photo by Erin Koski

A thinner choke chain is more severe than one with big fat links, in general the thinner-is-more-severe rule holds true for everything but prong collars. A wider collar distributes pressure across a larger area, while a thinner collar concentrates and magnifies any force exerted. Thin choke chains are popular in the conformation show ring because they are subtle and don't draw attention away from the dog, and at the same time look a bit like elegant jewelry. Big fat chains are easier on the dog's neck, less severe when popped, and scream "THIS IS A CHAIN!" for those who like to accessorize.

The most effective way to use a choke chain is to keep it high on the dog's neck when tightened. This is where there is the least muscle, and the most sensitive nerves along with important things like arteries. It guarantees that the chain will hurt the most when yanked, and most effectively cuts off the dog's air supply when lifted up. I never use choke chains, I bought these at a thrift store specifically for this blog post.

How Not to Use a Choke Chain
One of the reasons people use choke chains is because this type of collar tightens up when pressure is applied, and prevents the dog from backing out. More importantly, the collar remains loose when no pressure is applied. A flat collar must be very tight indeed to prevent the dog from backing out, and some dogs can back out of anything that doesn't tighten. Martingale collars and harnesses also prevent dogs from escaping, but without causing the same type of damage to the neck as an ever-tightening noose.

Photo by Erin Koski

The average pet owner isn't using a choke chain to prevent escape, though. Most seem to be using it as a bandaid for pulling on leash. The choke chain is simultaneously the least effective and most damaging way to try to stop dogs from pulling on walks. No-pull harnesses and head collars are both fairly effective bandaid solutions for pulling. The Easy Walk front-clip harness is currently my favorite no-effort solution for dogs that pull. It causes little to no discomfort, minimal harm so long as it isn't being used for running or by canine athletes, and can be effectively used just by clipping it on and walking without training. It can be a great training aid too, but it makes a decent bandaid for people who just want to take a damned walk without getting dragged down the street.

The average dog owner seems to think choke chains work by causing discomfort when the dog pulls. The vast majority of the ones I see on dogs are either much too long or much too short. The chain is always resting around the base of the neck, and the wearer is pulling like a sled dog. Choke chains are terrible bandaids for pulling because they just aren't that aversive when used like this. Most dogs don't really mind, or even notice that they are being strangled. The sensation is of a slow, gradual squeeze rather than the sudden pinch from a prong collar, and many dogs are perfectly willing to pull through that feeling. There's nothing to help them connect between leash pressure and not being able to breathe because these don't happen at the same time.

Photo by Erin Koski

Why Not to Use a Choke Chain
When used correctly, a choke chain is used to inflict pain as a method of training. When used incorrectly, a choke chain is used as an ineffective deterrent to pulling on leash. Unlike most training tools out there, a choke chain also causes harm no matter how it is used. Those sharp collar corrections high on the neck damage tracheas and glands and other delicate structures. The chronic strangulation of the choke chain sitting low on the neck of a dog allowed to pull causes eye damage. Using a choke chain to deliberately strangle, drag or hang a dog like a certain TV dog trainer can cause brain damage severe enough that the only kind solution is euthanasia.

There just isn't any reason at all to be using a choke chain in 2014 when we have all sorts of other options for communicating with our dogs and solving behavior problems. Just about every other training tool on the market is safer, more effective, less aversive, and easier to use.

Phrases We Can Retire: "My Dog Ran Away"

There are quite a lot of different idioms and catch phrases used in the dog world, and some I think we could really do without. The world has moved on, we have a better understanding of learning and how it works, we know that you can indeed teach an old dog new tricks. One particularly outdated phrase irritates me each and every time I hear it: "my dog ran away", also "my cat ran away", and the avian version, "my bird flew away".

"Sweet freedom!"

The reason the term "ran away" bugs me so much is that I feel it implies some sort of agency on the part of the pet. What runs away, other than pets? Angsty teenagers? Cheating spouses? Stating that a dog ran away is essentially stating that the dog is capable of the higher thinking required to make a decision and then pack up and go.

This works if you think of dogs as responsible adults, or even teenagers with enough responsibility to babysit and hold down part-time jobs. The fact is, dogs are approximately as smart as toddlers. Think about that for a minute. Toddlers are people who can't be trusted not to run into the street, who don't understand that the stove is hot, or that electrical outlets contain pain and death. We have a wide variety of containment devices and safety measures intended to prevent toddlers from killing themselves, from strollers to baby gates to cabinet latches. Aside from the fact that they can be left unattended for hours and will never grow up, dogs are essentially two-year-olds. They need to be contained, they need to be taken care of.

This is why it bugs the crap out of me when I hear "I used to have a beagle, but it ran away." Nobody says "My two-year-old ran away" because toddlers don't run away, they get lost. When a two year old shoves a chair up against the front door so they can reach the doorknob, and then wanders down the street or off into the woods, the child is reported as "lost" or "missing", but never as a "run away" because toddlers lack the agency to deliberately leave.

Likewise, pets do not "run away", they get lost. Sometimes they accidentally escape, sometimes careless keepers let them wander the neighborhood and they fail to report home. That beagle did not get tired of his dad's drinking and decide that living on the streets was a better alternative, he followed his nose and when he finally lost the scent he didn't know where he was or how to get home.

I think that the concept of pets "running away" gives people license to not search as hard as they could for their missing animals. Why bother reporting a lost dog to the authorities when you believe, even on a subconscious level, that it might have gotten tired of living there and decided to go somewhere else? Not all lost pets are recovered, some owners spend months searching and publicizing their missing pet with no news, but I feel that we would have fewer strays in the shelter if we could retire the phrase and concept that pets can "run away".

My dogs are like toddlers, they are not allowed to run the neighborhood unsupervised, they aren't even allowed in the yard unless I'm home and listening for trouble. If they went missing, it would be a five-alarm, stop the presses EMERGENCY. I absolutely cannot imagine having the mindset that dogs should be free to roam unattended, or that they sometimes just leave of their own accord. How about you, how do you feel?