by: Armen T. Ghazarians

Dog training is an art, and like any artist you must pick your tools carefully in order to properly train your dog. Each dog is different, and thus you must be able to decide which collar is most appropriate for your dog based on its temperament, pesonality, and strength. Below, you will find a description of all the major varieties of dog training collars that you might come across when deciding to purchase one for you pooch.

The metal choke collar is perhaps the most popular and widely used collar in the dog training world. It should be used in training larger, stronger dogs that tend to take YOU for a walk.

The metal toggle choke collar is basically the same as you regular choke collar with the major difference being that you can correct you dog easily by using the toggle while your dog is off-leash.

The pinch collar should be used RARELY and only in situations where the choke collar is ineffective in controlling your dog (i.e. in situations where your dog is very strong, where its highly aggressive, and when it repeatedly lunges at other dogs and people).

The fur saver choke collar is designed to control the dog without leaving chain marks around the dogs' neck or getting fur caught in the chain which sometimes occurs when using an ordinary metal choke collar. It is mainly used when showing dogs and NOT in training them because the dogs don't tend to respond to them in training and they don't give the quick jerk needed for proper correction.

The nylon choke collar is best used in small dogs and puppies up to 3 months, because they tend to be more gentle and they tend to get young puppies used to wearing a collar.

The gentle head leader is best used on dogs that are more shy and easily corrected (i.e. dogs that respond quickly to your commands and dogs that tend to cringe upon your correction).

The electronic collar is mainly used for two reasons: first its used on field dogs (i.e. in bird hunting) and second it is used as a means of training the "out" command to a protection dog in its bite training phase.

The tracking harness is used for exactly what its name suggests: for tracking game, suspects, lost individuals, or competition articles.

And finally, the seeing eye dog harness is designed so that the dogs' owner can hang on to the lead while the dog guides her to her destination. Unlike other leads, this lead is designed so that the dog can pull its owner forward as it walks instead of gently walking beside her on loose lead.

In order to view pictures of the dog collars described above and for a more indepth discussion of each, please visit me at:

http://www.newdogtrainingscrets.com and select from a variety of articles on the topic in the November archive