More attention to the dog’s neck
On our blog we often write about appropriate equipment. One of the main reasons we choose an H-shaped harness for all dogs is to protect their sensitive neck together with all the internal organs. However, there is even more to consider about the dog’s neck.
Lyuba from the Smiling Leash team says: “A few days ago I was walking with my dog Heidi during a beautiful starry evening. The sky was so bright and it was very hard to keep my gaze away. I was looking up and appreciating the stars for just a few minutes when I felt a very unpleasant sensation in my neck. By forcing myself to look up while walking I ended up with a sore neck after a very short while.”
Does it happen to our dogs? Of course, they usually do not look up to appreciate the stars. Still we often encourage them to look up at us and give us attention. At times knowingly, at times by accident.
Just like ours, the dogs’ necks are not built for looking up for long amounts of time. Naturally dogs more often stretch their necks down to sniff the ground or look in front of them and keep their necks horizontal. If we ask our dog to look up, their neck can also quickly get sore and this will have an effect on their behaviour. Even more so if it happens continuously. The discomfort from having to keep their head up might transform into chronic pain. We commonly see increased reactivity, withdrawal, distance increasing signals such as growling and baring their teeth in response to the pain and discomfort they are experiencing.
We encourage you to observe yourself and your dogs: do you ever ask them to look up at you? What about when you are giving them a treat?
Here are some things that will help us to take more care about our dogs’ necks and their overall mobility:
When you give your dog a treat, please do it on the level of their natural head carriage. It is slightly more challenging with smaller dogs, of course.
If you have some tasty treats or nice toys in your hands and your dog is following you with their head up, you can notice it before it gets too challenging for the dog and either hide the treats/toys away or share them with the dog.
Let your dog sniff and walk slowly on a loose long leash. This promotes wonderful natural movement and neck stretches that are necessary for the healthy body.
If you play tag with your dog please take care to hold the toy on their head level in a gentle way, without encouraging or exciting your dog on purpose. By giving your dog more choice you will most probably discover that the play will last for just a little while.
Notice if you look back and talk to your dog a lot - that may also encourage your dog to look up at you.
You can choose to avoid using or teaching the “look at me” command. Please consider whether the benefits outweigh the consequences for the physical health of your dog. Our teacher and mentor Turid Rugaas wrote a complete article about the the “Look at me” command that you can read here.
If necessary, we can teach our dog to respond to an attention sound without asking the dog to look up at our face. It’s enough that the dog follows us.
In this photo you can see Ecko and Mandy sniffing and stretching their neck very nicely in different directions, while their guardians are enjoying the view and patiently waiting for dogs to finish investigating. Our wish is that all pet dogs in the world get to experience such peaceful moments during their walks.
We are very glad to know many of you are taking slow smiling leash walks. The kind of walks that are beneficial for dogs’ both mental and physical health. To discover more information and get additional advice we invite you to explore the Blog section on our website.
