Jingles & Her Infinity Collar
At some point every little kid has to start growing up and Jingles has now started the adjustment period to an infinity collar. This unique collar is encouraged by Southeastern Guide Dogs to help in leash training. In particular, it assists in eliminating the urge puppies have to lunge at various distractions while on the leash. You’ve all seen examples of that where it looks like the dog is walking the person rather than the other way around!
In the picture, you can see the collar goes over her muzzle. Then it makes a figure 8 underneath her mouth and goes back behind her ears/head, eventually attaching to her regular collar, then her leash. She can still eat, drink and give plenty of puppy kisses just fine with the infinity collar on, but it does look a little strange.
For the past ten days, we have been taking it slow. We started (per the excellent advice of our fellow puppy raiser Claire) with holding the collar in front of Jingles and with the lure of a treat, letting her walk and put the collar around her own neck. Then after a few days of practicing that, we moved on to getting it on her muzzle. Obviously she wasn’t too happy with it, so only short spurts of having it on and many treat rewards helped. After two weeks, she now is much more comfortable with the collar and actually gets excited when she sees us grab it. We have started using it on very brief walks and it has made all the difference in the world. She walks beautifully in the collar, as if she is on display at the Westminster Dog Show. Amazing!
Haute Flavor 