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Anonymous
We used them for a lot of years on our GSDs. Some of our dogs just utterly refused, despite obedience classes, positive reinforcement, punishment etc, to stop pulling. One of our dogs was usually pretty good in that department, but he was an ex airforce security dog with an aggression problem. If any other dog attempted to attack him, he'd eat them. That's why he wore not one, but two calf chokers- CALF, as in baby cow and anyone who's had to deal with them will tell you how unholy strong the little bastards can be, even if they're only a day or so old- and my brother carried a screwdriver in his pocket whenever he took the dog for a walk. If another dog was stupid enough to attack our dog (this is the early 80s, low awareness on dog control; if we had the same dog nowadays we would have had to muzzle him by law) the our dog would latch on and utterly refuse to let go. Hence the screwdriver. My brother would slip the screwdriver underneath the chains and twist, the collars becoming progressively tighter and tighter until the dog would be forced to let go from sheer asphyxiation.
So, yes, chokers do work. Unfortunately they're not all that crash hot for the dog's health and when the nose halters came out we trialled them. As the song goes, "Now I'm a believer!" They work ten times better than the chokers ever did and while they certainly do annoy the dog they don't hurt it. And the dog is unable to get its weight against it properly as well and can't pull a fraction as badly as it can with a choker or conventional collar. If you're thinking of trying a choker chain, I'd suggest you try the nose halter first.
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