It is so important that your dog enjoys or tolerates a collar grab as a safety measure. At some point in your puppy or dog's life, they might need to be caught while they are loose, and we want them to feel comfortable with this. Grabbing a collar can arouse some dogs who may start nipping at your hand and intimidate other dogs who may back away to try to prevent you from being able to grab their collar. You can teach them to enjoy having their collar grabbed by making the collar grab predict something they like (food). In this video above, Gwen Podulka, CPDT-ka and founder of Dog Trained, is working on collar grabs with elkhound puppy, Nova. Keep scrolling for the written steps to help train your dog to enjoy a collar grab.

Step by Step: Collar Grab Dog Training

• Step One: If you can't grab the collar without your dog getting mouthy or frightened, you can show them what you are going to do first (the physical gesture of reaching toward them) but then give them a treat WHILE you reach for that collar (you will see Gwen do this in the first rep in the video above).

• Step Two: Once your dog is comfortable, you can move to reaching and grabbing your dog’s collar FIRST and THEN giving them a treat (this is what Gwen does in the later reps in the video). That is ultimately the order we want: one reach and grab collar THEN two deliver a treat (we need that collar grab to be the predictor of good things in order for your dog to build up good feelings about it).

• Step Three: You can then practice these grabs from various positions: to the side of your dog, in front of your dog, behind your dog, sitting down, standing up, etc. (As a note, you could add a step and present your hand without fully grabbing the collar followed by a treat to start making the act of reaching more pleasant for your dog before you ever work up to grabbing the collar.).

Behind the Scenes: A Special Filming Note from Gwen

I had someone ask a really great question about the mask. They said “Why wear one since the likelihood that dogs transmit Covid is extremely low?” It gave me the great excuse to mention that we train in masks in my studio in Washington, DC a) because there is still another person in studio and we can’t always maintain distance but more importantly we REALLY want puppies to learn that masks = fun and they don’t need to worry about someone wearing one around them.

To learn more about Gwen and her training business, click here. For more TOC training tutorials, keep learning and training here.

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