i wouldnt go nr chokers or prongs and do use haltis and harnesses. i love the halti harness combo for calming guided walking.

however, dogs can fight against, resist, and get these off.

i have seen it....even with a mekuti harness.

no equipment is infallible.
some is very good, however, the reality never really matches the hype.
there is ALWAYS little training 'extras' for individual dogs required to iron out the practical glitches that crop up.

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I tend to use the Halti harnesses/or the Sens-ible/premier easy walk (slightly easier to put on than the mekuti!)

But few dogs I have seen will resist especially when using the double lead. However - I agree - you will get the odd exception to the rules, dogs who can wriggle out backwards - in the same way I expect you will get the odd dog who will fight through the pain t try and remove the prong collar or check chain .

I think I would question whether a dog who was so terrified that he fought a collar or harness should be walked by a volunteer in the open anyway. This would seem (to me) a pretty silly thing to do.
With a reactive or unsocialised dog, would it not be better to spend the time working on his issues rather than dragging him round a field? When Raz was in a kennel, Kathy would go and sit beside him, just talking to him. For a traumatised dog that was enough.

That's just what I was saying about the DT dogs that are traumatised, terrified etc. Volunteers would not be allowed to walk them. In fact they wouldn't be walked at all unless they enjoyed it & got some pleasure from it.

The staff spend a lot of time assessing the dogs when they first come into kennels & then programmes are set up to help the dogs & to work through these issues. Sometimes only one or two members of staff would handle the dogs, & sometimes this may involve nothing more than just feeding, sitting near them, gentle handling if the dog was comfortable. The dogs are certainly not forced into doing anything that clearly terrifies them (except for essential vet treatment of course).

Would never suggest a dog 'that' traumatised should be walked by a volunteer or even at all....I was talking more about dogs who get frightened by unexpected things - low flying planes etc and try and escape that particular situation.

What did the RSPCA official say when you mentioned your concerns ?
Not sure where you are, but our volunteers get the chance to go to Millbrook ( Chobham) & see the kennels & how they work.
If you are volunteering just to Dog walk, you'll have a DOg handed to you, already to go.
When you are trying to get one Dog out of a communal run (which some spend time in during the day) you are faced with excited Dogs, scared Dogs, Dogs leaping about etc. Much easier to slip something over their heads.

Wasn`t referring to your post, Tassle Just commenting (poorly expressed perhaps) that a bit of 1 to 1 time doesn`t need to be walkies.

under my watch when i organised the dog rehab in the rescue, fearful, under socialised, highly reactive, or non human bonded dogs never got walked for a time.

they got taken to the chillout room.

Excellent if you have one. We had nowhere at the time but we did manage to get a few dogs to go to peoples houses to chill and learn. Other than that there were small secure runs in nice weather but unless all other dogs were banned from going near that isn't ideal.

It was very mix and match but actually worked better than it seems to now. The vounteers were all pulling together in adversity and worked hard to help. Now it is well staffed and modern it has lost the community feel and dogs get lost in the system.

I think it is probably the same with a lot of the bigger organisations running nationwide rigid policies.

rune

Oh I see what you mean now ~ sorry.

Yes I've sometimes been walking a dog in the park next door to the kennels where they sometimes have those skate-board thingys that get pulled along by sails (I expect they've got a special name but I don't know what they're called!!). And some dogs have got spooked by them, but the harnesses they use are very difficult to wriggle out of, & if we are aware that the dog is a bit nervous, wary, gets spooked, it is likely to have shown up in other areas, so we're on the watch for signs of stress & would probably avoid those sort of places anyway. It's rare that people are caught completely unawares ~ but of course accidents do occasionally happen.