The Dog Diaries: Can I get paid for this?

I shall harness the power of my pen (or in this case my MSi S6000 laptop) to give a shout-out to StarMark for their awesome training collar.

Walking Chevy has been a painful experience.  He is just so exuberant!  We've tried a number of things to keep him from pulling us around when we go on walks.  First we tried just yanking his leash and stopping whenever he started to pull, but his response to that was to ignore us (and keep pulling) or bite through the leash.  Then, at the advice of our dog trainer, we worked on positive reinforcement by giving him treats and positive praise whenever he stayed with us.  That works for as long as you have treats in your hand or until he sees a dog/cat/squirrel/deer...whichever comes first. 

We tried retractable leashes, which he has a hard time biting through.  But that didn't stop the pulling either.  I was getting pretty frustrated because I wanted to take that blasted dog on a walk for both of our sakes, but I wasn't looking forward to the chiropractic adjustment I would need afterwards. 

I considered a pronged collar, but I just didn't like the image of my pooch having that metal chain and prongs around his neck.  I know when I look at a dog on a pronged metal collar, I think the dog looks agressive and I get a little nervous.  I don't want other people to think that way about my Chevy.  Then a friend told me about the StarMark collar.  It is great because it has a solid plastic outside band that hides the fact that it is pronged.  No one would look at Chevy and guess that he has a pronged collar on.  The prongs seem a little more gentle to me as well.

Our walks have been sooooooo much better with this collar on.  Chevy stays with me during 95% of the walk.  If something catches his attention, he might dart away but the collar "reminds" him to not pull before he's had the chance to disconnect my rotator cuff.  And I know he doesn't really mind wearing it because he is eager for our walks and he doesn't complain when I put it on him. 

I'm a believer!  I got my collar on Amazon.com for about 10 bucks!