Last night, our 7 mo. husky old got to playing a little too rough with our two year old BC. At some point, his bottom jaw became entangled in our BC's collar, and began thrashing around because he was scared--of course, that only made things worse. After a couple painful minutes of them screaming and biting and thrashing, my fiance and I managed to get them undone with no damage. Our husky's jaw is fine, and aside from being too terrified to come out from under the table, our BC was fine too.

Now of course my fiance and I emotionally scarred and would like to do anything possible to prevent this from happening again. I've removed their collars for indoor use, but I frequently take them to the dog park. After the incident I'm too worried to leave their side at the dog park, and it is against our community's rules to have dogs at the park without collars and tags. Now I am at a loss, but I don't want to take away their playtime with dogs at the dog park just because of a collar. Any advice?

What about break away collars that are designed to release with pressure.

http://www.breakawaycollar.com/

you could just have two collars on them when you take them to the dog park the breakaway ones with the tags and the non break away attached to the leashes and when inside take off the collar attached to the leash. If it pops off you can just put it back on.

So sorry. It must have been hard on you guys to watch. Happy they are ok now. How loose are your dogs collar? For the most part I think you should be able to fit 2 fingers between the collar and their skin. If fitted more tightly it may be harder to get the jaw wedged in between.

We read about this often here, keep the collars off at home but at the dog park make sure you have a collar with a clip and not a slipover so you can unsnap it fast.we really do hear more about this at home then at parks if it makes u feel any better

We've had it happen twice between Demon and Dakota. I feel your pain...it terrified us both times it happened. The second time, both dogs were so scared and in such a position that Dakota's tooth punctured Demon near his eye. Needless to say that was enough to have us leaving the collars OFF when they're at home.

At the dog park they never stay interested in the same dog long enough for them to become entangled.

This happened with Juneau and my first foster. My foster had Juneau's collar wrapped around his bottom jaw, choking Juneau. It was very scary. It was on there very tightly and I couldn't release it. I screamed for my boyfriend to help but he sleeps pretty hard. I was finally able to unclasp it, but they definitely didn't wear collars for a few weeks. I didn't even think to cut it with a pair of scissors nearby, but I think the collar might have been too thick to do it.

Anyways, I'd keep the collars on at the dog park. This doesn't happen very often. What happens if a kid leaves the gate open and your husky escapes? You'd want the collar to be on. Just keep a close eye and be prepared if it happens again.

This may be a naive New Zealander thing to say, But are you not allowed to have the dogs at the dog park with a walking harness on? You could attach the tags to that? Then you don't need the collar...