Have any owners witnessed unusual accidents which have happened to their dogs? When Zak (GSD) was approx. 1 year old I had just let them into the garden, while I was in the kitchen. I heard such a racket & when I looked down the garden I couldn't believe it. He wears a half check leather collar with his name tag & notification that he is chipped. He had obviously jumped up at the wrought iron gate for some reason & the ring on his collar had caught on one of the wrought iron bits. It is quite heavy, but he had atually lifted it off it's hinges & fled down the garden with it still attached, I dread to think what would of happened if I hadn't been in! Most collars have rings on them, I don't think it would have made any difference what sort of collar it was. On the 2nd occasion he was flat out on the decking, doing absolutely nothing (only snoring) his name tag & the ring on his collar this time fell inbetween two of the wooden decking boards. It then twisted round just as he was getting up & he was pinned to the decking. I was there & released it straight away. Again his collar is not loose, but this still could have been nasty if he had panicked. Does anyone else have any warnings?

Many years ago we managed to intercept a terrier racing along the pavement with a litter bin dragging behind him. The dog was scared out of it's wits  and trying to escape this horrible noisy thing that was following him. His owner had tied him to the bin whilst in the shop and the dog had pulled it over  and taken flight dragging the bin behind him. We heard the noise behind us and turned round to see what it was just in time to grab the poor little chap as he came round the corner.

Collar accidents are common. I'd never leave a half check on a dog, far better to use a plain collar. I don't use collars on any of mine at home because I have more than one dog. (Although I really ought to buy some of these breakaway collars that come apart if stuck as of course it would be better to have collars on.) 3 years ago two of mine nearly died when their collars got tangled up as they were playing -one dog had his mouth stuck in the other's collar and his mouth and nose were bleeding and the other one was being strangled. Thankfully I got to both in time, but there was an incidence with a CD member where one dog died in the same way.

My dog has never worn a collar indoors and I don't really see a need for one inside.  I have witnessed one dog get his tooth caught in anothers collar = panic.

Oh yes, I have a good warning, I had my mum's dogs over have had them over loads of times, and I had just taken my chicken out of the fridge to cook, my neighbour knocked on the door so I pushed the chicken to the very back of the units, the dogs could not reach it (or so I thought) I was chatting happily to my neighbour and popped around to look at her new car.

Came back in the house and I could smell gas............. What!!!

Went into the kitchen to find mum's orange roan, smallest of her Cockers on the unit eating the chicken, the dog had knocked my cooker knobs in the houdiny exercise, jumping from breakfast bar to units over sink, more units and then cooker to chicken, and gas was happily filling the kitchen.

I very often have left a chicken out , or other roast meats and never had any of the dogs get on the units to get it, even the GSD's don't try, so just a warning to others, how a dog could have blown up my house or gassed us all to death as we slept, for any food left on the units.

Couldn't care she'd only just eaten some fresh chicken wings 20 mins previous.

Just thought of an accident or maybe more of an incident I had with my dog.  She hates her nails being clipped so I thought I would try a dremmel.  Used it a few times but had to be very careful as she is long haired.  I usually put a sock with a hole over her foot and poke the nail through the hole.  One day I was doing her dewclaw and her hair had managed to get through the hole too and it got caught in the dremel, she jumped up and the dremel came out of my hand - she was turning round trying to find out what was hanging off her leg and the dremel was sparking as the hair tangled it and burned out the motor.  Luckily I managed to switch it off quite quickly (seemed like ages though) and she wasn't hurt.  I now have a file I am going to use!!!

You can now buy collars that break away if enough pressure is made and have 2 d rings to connect together to overide the break away when you need to go for a walk
http://www.keepsafecollar.com/index.cfm

Must admit mine don't wear collars anymore - at first it was because our youngest likes to chew them and we can't afford new ones every week, but after reading about various strangling incidents, we've been very lucky as we often came home to find the little one had dragged the collars off over the older dogs' heads!!

Nothing very dramatic ever happened to ours so far, but one of them nearly pulled the net curtains down on himself standing on the windowsill jumping up and down barking at something!!

Another collar story. 

Some years ago my cat had a nasty accident involving his collar.  It was the type that buckled on with an elastic strip that was supposed to stretch in case of accident.  He never roamed very far being a coward by nature and was always quick to get back over the back fence, cast iron with pointed top to each bar, if danger threatened.

He was too quick one day, caught himself on the railing by his collar as he struggled to get free he managed to impale himself in the arm pit  on the railing.  Took ages for the damage to mend and ended up with him having an operation to repair the wound.  He never wore a collar again.

I've had 2 near tragedies with dogs getting caught in each other's collars.  After the first, I never left collars on them in the house, the second time was when I was putting on their leads to take them out and a couple of them had a little play.  I'm so lucky now.  We live on a farm so they don't have to wear collars, in fact I would have problems finding all of their collars. 

A sad story, a dog I bred died when she got herself impaled on iron railings.  Just a nightmare, what a terrible thing to happen.  The poor dog and her poor devastated owner. 

This isn't a collar accident put it's a pretty unusual one.
We live in a row of 3 detached bungalows all with cellars.  Next door has a window in their cellar at ground level looking out onto our drive.
Anyway one day Toby raced out of the door down the drive and through the closed window!!  To this day we don't know why as he'd been with us for years and was used to seeing our neighbours through it even though at the time they weren't in the cellar.
He promptly raced back through the window up into our house and lay like a mouse in his bed.  Luckily despite the amount of blood his injuries were not as bad as they looked and he was soon back on his paws.  My neighbours were more worried about Toby than their window but we got it fixed staright away for them.  Since that day he's taken no notice of it, it just seemed he had one mad moment with it.

my dads greyhound did something like that my dads friend was looking after her and she ran so hard at the window it broke she hurt herself instead of coming to him she ran onto the main road and got run over . My dad loved that dog he bought her  as an exracer and she was beautiful .

This is a bit of a horrid one I'm afraid but last summer we got a postcard from a friend saying "Our beloved "D" died today. Too upset to write more but see you soon".

About six months earlier they'd rehomed a lovely little staffie cross from rescue who had settled down beautifully and they'd decided to take their summer holiday in the West Country so he could enjoy it with them. Two days into their stay they walked over Dartmoor and climbed to their top of one of the Tors where their dog saw a rabbit, took off like a rocket and promptly went straight off the edge and was killed instantly. Up to then he'd never been particularly interested in chasing anything and they'd honestly thought he'd be fine off lead.

Personally I have a real dread of dogs going off cliffs and since we live near to some spectacular drops I don't walk the dog anywhere near them and after hearing about this awful accident I'm even more determined to be ultra-careful.

I remember being told this one while i was doing a national diploma in animals husbandry, by a lecture (jo) who was a vet nurse for many years before.

she recalls a quiet day at the vets, she was sat behind reception having her lunch, the vets where all out on call. when a farmer comes in for calf tubes but said his dog was grazed, and could he bring it in. jo told the farmer the vets where all on call and could he maybe come back in an hour or so with the dog for consultation. The farmer insisted that his dog be seen and went out to his land rover where he brought a collie in his arms. The dog had no feet and half of his side was missing down to the bone. the dog was in such a bad way the vet nurse got permission from the vet to put it to sleep there and then.

The farmer was in shock.

Apparently that morning while the farmer had gone to check his cows he had tied his dog to the towing hitch and forgot about him. he then drove all the way to the vets to get the calf tubes and said how many people where flashing there lights at him but he thought nothing of it. they where trying to tell him of his dog being dragged behind.

I actually felt pain reading that.

There was a well publicised story here recently of a couple arriving in Belfast for a concert. On parking their car, they found a collie attached to their front bumper!! The dog was alive and a local vet was summoned. It turned out that they had hit the collie shortly after leaving home (owner was tracked down and lived just a few miles from them) but hadn't felt the impact and travelled about 60 miles with the dog attached to the front of the car!! The dog made a good recovery and was returned to its owner.

Oh God, that's truly awful.  Poor, poor dog....

Our whole village was saddened to learn of the death of a little doggie we all saw running along with his owner and her children while they bicycled.  He was a little black fox terrierish looking dog, the kids were small, so didn't go fast, and our village is small and quiet so it seemed harmless.  Somehow, without his family seeing anything, little doggie got himself into a discarded cheesie bag from the small local store and he suffocated.  It's hard to imagine but that's what I heard.

well I had just came in from a walk,with one of our Mastiffs,so he still had his leather collar on,nothing fancy,for some strange reason as he walked through the kitchen blooming collar caught on the kitchen door knob,dozy nuts kept walking and off came the door,hinges,frame splintered,so we ended up having to make whole new door frame for it,paint job,it all had to be done in a rush,as we are trying to sell our house,and had viewers due within that hour,arghhhhhhhhh,the dog just stood there,tail wagging,door hanging from collar,
Wendy

heard of an accident involving an entire dog jumping over a barbed wire fence to get at sheep and getting his testicles caught on the barbs!

Sorry, that's terrible, I wonder if he learned his lesson & stopped chasing sheep?

What an awful story. I share your dread. I'm totally paranoid about falls and will not do cliff top walks unless both of mine are on leads. They're both given to being overcome by the "red mist" when hunting and go deaf. My girl now has to be kept on the lead at the bottom of cliffs too (well, disused chalk pits round here mostly) as she seems to think she's a mountain goat and races up anything that's a few degrees short of vertical and then has trouble finding her way down. It's very disconcerting to see your dog charging at top speed along the edge of an apparently sheer 50' wall of chalk!

My first dog was spooked by a very low flying fighter plane on top of Malham Cove and bolted towards the edge, which I think is about 700 feet high, and was caught by a man who did the most spectacular rugby tackle I've ever seen. I think that's the only time I've hugged and kissed a toal stranger.

We have also had to put trellis up at some of our windows so we can keep them open in the hot weather. A few weeks ago, the silly girl flew into the bedroom chasing a bee, leaped up on to the sill, skidded and did a "Tom and Jerry" style mad teeter half in and half out of the first floor window before she recovered her balance.

I found a dog in the bush once, during one of those weird storms where it is not rain or snow that is falling but little pellets of snow.  Exactly like pellets of styrofoam.  Absoluting pelting down :) complete with thunder and lightning while poochie-girl and I sheltered under a tree, hopefully not the tallest tree.  Looked out and there was a dog standing in it.  A big dog, out of nowhere.  Made me nervous, this great big dog appearing out of nowhere and standing in this wicked storm but he turned out to be friendly, followed me home, literally sticking to my side like glue.  Even closer to me than my own dog.   Long story short, his owner told me when he'd been a pup he'd been lying under a tree that was hit by lightning.  The dog got a jolt, or was just terrified, took off running and got hit by a school bus.  Survived all this but minus a sliver of bottom jaw on the right side, where I had noticed a piece was missing because the teeth weren't there.  Ever after poor Dexter panicked in a storm and went so wild he got out of several pens his owners thought would contain him.  Where I found him in the bush was a good ways from his house, so good thing he hadn't been hit again, dashing across a road in his blind panic.