Did anyone see the letter in yesterday's Daily Telegraph.
A lady with a flatcoat was exercising her dog along with a friend with a flatcoat.  It had on a half-check collar.  The type with a small chain so the collar can slip off if caught up.  The dogs were playing and one dog got the collar caught around its' lower jaw.  This had the effect of strangling the other dog.  The dogs panicked and the owner was unable to free the collar, resulting tragically in the death of her dog. 
She had written in the hope of alerting other dog owners about the possible flaw of the design of the collar and had also written to the manufacturers.  I have used these collars in the past as I felt they were a safer option, but obviously this is not the case.
Lorna

Very sad. ANY collar is a risk though with two dogs playing, unless they are safety collars that will break away. I used to have plain collars on my dogs in the house, until the same thing happened to me. I managed to get them apart at the last moment (it was early in the morning but the screaming woke me) -had I not been at home AND had help one would have died. Moonmaiden mentioned saftey collars a few weeks ago, let's see if I can find the URL........  http://www.traininglines.org.uk/dogwear_info.htm#KeepSafe

Great link, this could be the compromise to wearing a collar indoors...I wouldn't risk these outside with the borzois though. If I ever needed to grab them when they were off lead it would be when there was something I didn't want them to eat.. in which case they would be leaping around, twisting and turning trying to get at it, not sure it could survive that    But still well worth considering as a house collar.

Well well i have repeated the same story for ages and i just got slated for having no id tag on my dog!
The health of my dogs come 1st and foremost this has happened to me and if a dog warden wants to prosecute me then so be it.

I'm sooo sorry for that person i had a heart attack when it happened to mine (and it can happen on a flat collar as i dont do them tight)

I've probably had some lucky escapes as my young bitch rips collars off my other two dogs and destroys them - needless to say they no longer wear collars in the house, only when running in the park. So sorry to hear about your story :-(

Sadly accidents can happen, but there is just as much risk in not having a collar on your dog to grab should it dive out the door of your house or car.  These are freak accidents.

You have to weigh up the relative risks.  For example I ahve had mine on occasion put their foot through the chain on their half checks when they ahve been very out of coat and the collars have slipped right down when they are sniffing, but mine don't panic they either hobble over to me to rescue them or stay put and bark for me to coem to them.  I did have one that woudl remove the other dogs collars and actually lost one of the collars in the park, and a kind soul that found it posted it to me as the address was on the tag.

The same argument could be used about Car seatbelts, where some people have died being unable to free themselves from the belt.

I had a similar incident. Mine have always worn soft flat house collars indoors, with name tags on just in case. A few months ago my collie pup was playing with her mum and the two rings on their name tags got intertwined and almost strangled the pup. Luckily I was there and able to seperate them, the noise of the poor pup choking was awful. Now they don't wear any collars indoors - only when out on walks when they're always supervised. They've never 'escaped' from the house/garden so to me this is a lesser risk.