We have a bright, mischevious 12 week old cairn puppy.

We tried him with a collar tonight and he became sad. There was no struggle involved. He sat on my knee; I put it on him; it was not too tight but he immediately became sad, quiet, refused to play and, believe it or not sulked with me. He would not look at me. I took it off after half an hour. He remained quiet and sad for about an hour.

When my partner returned home, he greeted him as normal - very giddy, excited etc. He was still a bit off it with me but eventually came around.

An hour later he tried the collar again. Exactly the same thing happened. He is now sad and sulking with both of us. We took the collar off.

We don't want to make him unhappy but want to start taking him out for walks and to socialisation classes soon.

Any advice would be welcome.

I'd be inclined to put the collar on and leave it on.  By keep taking it off your confusing him.  Put it on, leave it one, and don't pay him any attention when he 'sulks' - he'll soon forget he's wearing it, honest! ;)

Yup, got to agree with digger...

So far every pup ive had, collar on, leave it on, distract pup with exciting things, food etc, ignore any sillyness.

They get over it, they HAVE to, so dont bother putting it on and taking it off again, just leave it!

Em

our pup is now 12 weeks old and at 9 weeks when we picked him up we put the collar on him, he went quite and then every other step he took he tried to scratch it off,three weeks down the line he does not even know he has a collar on, perserve with the collar he will get used to it, i know this may sound silly but make sure the collar is not a heavy one.
carol

Poor thing! Have to agreed with the other advice though, he will have to get used to wearing one. As Carol says, make sure it's a nice lightweight one so he's got no reason to complain, then just persevere. My dogs haven't liked collars at first either, but within a few hours they have been ok. Let us know how it goes!

We started Poppy off with a cat collar until she was allowed out - cat collars are a lot softer.