Stop the Pop!

What is a lead correction/lead pop?

A quick snap back to the neck given by the person holding the lead, believed by some to distract and redirect the dogs attention or stop them from doing what the person perceives as an unacceptable behaviour.

Is this really an effective method?

If you want to consider lead corrections as your method of training, I suggest putting £5 in a jar every time you ‘pop’. You can then use this towards your inevitable vet and physiotherapy bills. Read on…

In my opinion, this approach never does anything to solve the underlying cause of a problematic behaviour, rather, it simply suppresses it. Remember, we are working with dogs here and what we deem as a ‘problematic behaviour’ is nine times out of ten, just general dog behaviour that we find undesirable in our human world. So simply, all lead corrections do is suppress a dogs natural behaviour, they don’t actually communicate to our dogs what behaviour we would like them to adopt instead. Lead pops will not shape your dog into what you want them to become, it will purely temporarily in that moment, stop what you don’t want them to practice. Dog’s don’t understand why a person suddenly yanks on their neck, and this can lead to a depressed state and actually cause greater frustrated behaviours.

So, imagine you travel to a country where they speak a different language. You are walking into a building and all of a sudden a person comes up and pokes you hard in the neck. He is giving no other clear signals and it gets a little scary. The only option you feel available is get out of this building quickly (but now imagine you are also tethered by the neck).

What did you learn?

Did you learn to take your shoes off before entering the building or did you just learn to avoid walking into the building again?

Now imagine the same scenario except this time the person walks up, smiles and points at your shoes and mimics taking them off. You oblige and you are then offered the best meal ever.

It is so important to communicate in a way the dog understands. To me, not only is issuing lead corrections inhumane, it sounds like the long way round in dog training.

A wise person once said:

“Anyone can tell someone what they did wrong, but a great leader teaches them what to do instead.”

So, is this method actually physically detrimental?

Let’s take a moment to consider the anatomy of a dog's neck. Every time we apply pressure to our dogs collar, or neck area, we are applying pressure to their lymph nodes, mandibular and thyroid gland, along with a major artery and veins and not to mention risking irreversible damage to the trachea and oesophagus.

There is a confirmed trend with dogs that pull on the lead, and thyroid damage. The consistent trauma to the thyroid gland - located right where a “correctly” fitting slip lead/prong collar should sit (although the correct place for these to sit is the bottom of a bin; if you were to ask me), can lead to bruising and inflammation. When your dog’s thyroid becomes inflamed, their immune system sends white blood cells to the area in an attempt to eradicate the inflammation. The white blood cells do get rid of the inflammation, but they will eventually start to wear down the thyroid. Over a long period of time this will eventually lead to a low immune system, opening them up to all sorts of illnesses including cancer.

Pressure in this delicate area can also lead to restricted blood flow to a dog's vital sensory organs. When blood flow is cut off on a regular basis, it causes swelling, constant swelling will very likely lead to permanent damage to your dogs eyes, ears and/or nasal physiology. This type of intraocular pressure can cause serious injury to dogs already suffering thin corneas, glaucoma, or existing eye injuries.

Now let's consider the nerves in your dog’s front legs, again these can be affected as a direct result of not taking care of your dog's anatomy within their neck. When nerves in this delicate area are damaged, it causes a tingly sensation in their front paws, and can be a cause of dogs licking their paws, knees or legs in general in an attempt to make them feel better, and can also be a relating factor to foreleg lameness.

In a study of 400 dogs by Anders Hallgren published in “Animal Behaviour Consultants Newsletter” in 1992, he found that

“Pulling and jerking on the leash affects especially the neck and throat in the dog. As expected, there was no correlation between leash handling and thoracic/lumbar defects. However, one of the clearest correlations in the whole study was between cervical (neck) damages and ‘jerk and pull’. 91% of the dogs who had neck injuries had also been exposed to jerking on the leash by the owner or been allowed to pull hard on the leash for long periods of time.”

Anders' study was focused on back injuries. O

f the group of 400 dogs, 79% of the aggressive dogs had back problems, while 21% had no back problems. Of the reserved shy dogs 69% had back problems while 31% had no back issues.

Anders’ study shows that there is a correlation between physical health and behavioural problems, whilst taking into consideration what I have discussed in this post, do you really want to pop that lead?