Do Your Dogs Always Wear Collars?

Jamison always wears a collar - he has an ID tag, his rabies tag, and his license on it.

Deb W.

I got break away collars for when I have to leave the dogs outside or inside when we are gone.  Yes, it defeats the purpose of having a collar with id if it comes off but it's the best compromise I can come up with.  I also have "reward" on all of my collars. My dogs are all micro chipped and Twister is tatooed too. The dogs with collars and no tags are the most frustrating to me, why bother with a collar if you aren't going to help someone reunite you with your dog. 

"People tend to assume collarless dogs are ownerless dogs and dump them at the "kill in three days unless claimed" pound.

Yep, perhaps if we had one here. We have one humane society here in the entire province. The province is an island, so the dog is limited in where it can get to. Our humane society has a minimum wait on stray dogs, and I have been a volunteer member at that humane society for almost a year now. So.....once again we all live by our circumstances. In different circumstances, I might do things differently. But I'm quite content with how things are now.

no collars in the house here either...

for them to get out, they would have to bust out of their crates (solid iron cast wire crate!!), somehow unlock my front door, then take 16 flights of stairs down (or take the elevator!) get through a door that only unlocks with a key card, past the 24 hour door man, through another door, and then they would still be inside my gated off compound. in the highly unlikely event that that DID happen, i am sure noone will give a crap and return them to me, if they saw them roaming the streets... people take their dogs unleashed all the time here and there's always people around. seen so many dogs that look like they are alone, then the owner turns up around the corner...

 Cheyanne, Lillie, and Kujo wear theirs 24/7. The tags have my name,addy,phone and JJ's mom's phone numbers.

Fynn and Joker only when we're going out. Had a collar on Joker all the time but it started messing up his hair so now he's collar free.If I wasnt showing Joker then he would be wearing his collar 24/7 but I dont know what the rules are on collar indents in the fur. The boys are chipped not that I think it'll do any good around here if they were ever to get out.

Everyone can slip out of their collars if they were ever to get caught in anything.

 Max and Georgie almost always wear their collars. The only time they don't is if they (the dogs) are being washed.

stardog85

The time your dog will need id is invariably the one time you aren't expecting it, so that's why mine wear theirs 24/7.

Definitely.

My dogs have their collars on 24/7 with identification tags, and are microchipped as well.

sheltermuttlover

stardog85

The time your dog will need id is invariably the one time you aren't expecting it, so that's why mine wear theirs 24/7.

 

Definitely.

My dogs have their collars on 24/7 with identification tags, and are microchipped as well.

Agreed. Also why I get annoyed when I got a house I work at. They take the collar off the dog at night, and constantly forget to put it back on her. I dread the day she runs out the door, slips the fence, or something, and has no collar on. I read once in the newsletter from the local spca that the rules for dogs with and without collars who come in are different. A dog with a collar, or other id gets a longer hold time before they will do anything with it (put down or put up for adoption). Not sure what the number of days is, but I know they get more. A dog with no collar or id get less time, as it is considered a stray, rather than lost. My dogs are also both microchipped. Georgie is from the SPCA, so they can read her's with their scanner. I had Max scanned there when we got Georgie because I needed to verify it to get him a lifetime license. The dog I mentioned is chipped, but I'm not sure what brand and if the shelter's scanner will read that.

 Ginny only wears a collar when we are in the park on a walk, not in the house or in the yard. She's microchipped though, and I have the vet scan it just to make sure it still works at her annuals. The shelters in our area, although many times overflowing with animals, all have scanners. She gets annoyed with it if she has to wear it all the time.

Sammy doesn't wear a collar in his crate, nor at night.  Usually if we are home though he does. 

We are thinking of trying to transition from crate to not crated all day due to some experiences this weekend but then I'm not sure what I would do if, say, the landlord came over because he isn't happy with strangers.  but probaby no collar then either.

sheltermuttlover

stardog85

The time your dog will need id is invariably the one time you aren't expecting it, so that's why mine wear theirs 24/7.

 

Definitely.

My dogs have their collars on 24/7 with identification tags, and are microchipped as well.

That's what we do with ours too....

 On Wednesday, I noticed that the heart charm was missing off of Ena's collar. I figured it had just fallen off, til I took a closer look. The ring was BENT. I wondered what had happened.....

Yesterday, I was cleaning my grooming shop, and found it under one of the wire crates. Her TINY (1/2";) charm got caught in the wire while I was standing less than 10' away, and I did not even realize it.  She is not a stoic dog. She's extremely soft, and extremely vocal (read: she screams like a banshee). She didn't make a peep, so the ring was probably pretty weak. 

That just reaffirmed my feeling that collars aren't really safe. That is, by far, not the first collar I've seen caught. It's way too scary, for me.

And that's exactly why I LOVE the safety collars I use on Maggie: they hold ID but if they get snagged they release.  It really is the best of both worlds.  All of my dogs go uncollared in crates, when getting a bath, and for about 8 hours after Frontline application, other than that they are collared.

I'm fairly comfortable with Z wearing a regular collar in large part due to the fact that 1. the girls don't have access to crates while alone and 2. all of our air vents are on the ceiling, not the floor.  If either of those hazards were within reach when a dog was left alone, I'd totally be having all the dogs wear safety collars. 

A friend of mine is trying to get into the collar business and I'm encouraging her to make safety collars as the only down side I've run into is the fact that most safety collars are rather bland design-wise.  Maggie will be the first to try out her prototype. :)

 Rascal doesn't wear a collar often at all. He wears his harness most of the time when he's at home with us (saves time putting it on and off several times a day).

If Rascal were to get loose, and we didn't notice, a collar with ID might actually make things worse - he's pretty snappy about people grabbing at his neck (he has arthritis in his neck) and I don't want well-intentioned people getting all handsy while trying to read an ID tag and ending up with some puncture wounds to show for it.

He is microchipped.

They both wear a collar 90% of the time. I like to take Kaiser's off because the collar leaves an indention in his long hair, and Wyatt looks so cute nekkid!

I counted my collars the other day- i have 32. oops.