05/12/2021
WHY WE DON’T USE HEAD COLLARS
I don’t expect everyone to agree with this post, but as we are asked about this regularly and head collars are a tool often used by positive reinforcement-based dog trainers, I thought I would explain why as a training school we do NOT advocate the use of head collars.
The main concern most people raise about the use of head collars is safety i.e. whether they can cause physical injury. Doing a bit of research, I was unable to find that any studies have been done on the effects of head halters on the dog’s physical health, but nearly every article, even those recommending their use , contained a strong warning about potential neck injuries, if the dog hit the end of the lead at any sp*ed, and a caution about damage from ongoing use, if pressure was exerted on the halter, pulling the dog’s head slightly to the side on a regular basis. Perhaps there have been no studies, because the risk of injury is so obvious and not disputed.
However, what I want to focus on is not the physical effect of head halters, but the emotional effect. I am not a stranger to head halters – I have one in the back of a drawer somewhere from a time when I used it many years ago on one of my dogs for vet visits. In the past we had the occasional dog in class with a head halter (usually a dog prone to reactivity) and I recommended them to clients who struggled to hold large dogs on the lead. However, working with dogs for twenty years and becoming increasingly aware of their body language and what this indicated about their emotional state, I started to see the detrimental effect that head collars had on dogs.
Many people advocate head halters because they seem to calm dogs down. If a dog is reactive, a head collar tends to reduce the reactivity or if the dog is pulling and bouncing around, the head collar reduces the activity level. This is absolutely true, but why? Because head collars are aversive. Punishment is defined as the application of stimulus that leads to a decrease in behaviour. This is exactly the effect of a head collar. It suppresses behaviour and causes general inhibition.
I have seen too many utterly miserable “well-behaved” dogs in head collars. Sure, they take treats and they go through the motions of each exercise, but there is no spark and no enthusiasm in what they are doing. No matter how carefully you desensitize a dog to a halter (and if it was not aversive you would not have to try and desensitize them), if the dog’s behaviour and mood changes with fitting or removal of the head collar, then one cannot deny that it has an effect on how the dog feels – and, no matter how convenient it may be for us, it is not a good one.
A few years ago, we were regularly getting clients transferring from a “balanced” dog training club to our classes (thankfully people were waking up to the fact that force free was a better option). Interestingly, this club had a policy that all dogs had to be fitted with halters. Most of the dogs that we inherited had been trained to more “advanced” levels, but they still all wore halters. I can remember how hesitant the owners were to take these off in class – they were so used to the physical control (force) the halters gave that they had no idea how to work with their dogs without them. It turned out that none of the dogs had the slightest clue how to walk on a lead and we had to start from scratch with this and many other exercises. However, the change in attitude of the dogs once the halters were removed was incredible. The dogs went from compliant zombies to happy dogs! Their whole demeanour was different. They “woke up”, they engaged actively, they showed enthusiasm for what they were doing and they started to learn properly for the first time in their lives.
Head collars do not teach a dog anything except to give up and comply while the halter is on (the extreme physical restriction eventually leads to depression). Dogs may stop reacting to other dogs or pulling, because it is physically uncomfortable (or impossible) to do so, but there is absolutely no change to the dog’s underlying emotional response to other dogs or to the dog’s understanding of what loose lead walking actually entails. The discomfort and annoyance of the halter simply suppresses the response temporarily. The way a dog behaves with a head halter on is not a reliable indicator of how the dog is actually feeling and how the dog would behave under normal circumstances. A dog with a head collar may look like a “well-behaved” dog, but what happens when the halter is removed?
This post is not intended to point fingers at people who use head halters. I am very sure that most people do so with the best intentions. They are not trying to be horrible to their dogs or intentionally punish them. Most are probably trying to avoid using other popular aversive tools and trying to find humane solutions to problems they are experiencing. (Perhaps there are even emergency situations or extreme circumstances where they may be a TEMPORARY safety measure.) Unfortunately, I think that most people are simply unaware of the effect that these collars have, or they are not noticing the change in emotional state when the halter is put on and taken off. It took me years to wake up to what I was seeing – hopefully we are all learning and improving on what we do as our knowledge increases. Using a head collar is certainly not the only thing I did in the past that I would not do now.
What I would ask, is that if you do use a head collar or advocate their use – do a simple test. Try and work with the dog without one for a change and, keeping an open mind, see if you notice the difference. Start paying attention to what your dog looks like before the halter is put on, while it is on and when it is taken off. What changes in body language do you see? Do you notice a change in activity level? If you are using a head halter to address reactivity, what happens if your dog is in that same situation just on a harness? If your dog becomes reactive when the head collar is taken off, then your dog should not be in that situation – the halter is simply hiding the issue, it is not resolving it.
