The Mysterious Martingale

Okay, okay, its not all that mysterious, but I couldn't pass up title fodder like that.

I did, however, just learn the official name for it today.  I'd heard of harnesses, slip leads, and choke collars, but somehow the term 'Martingale collar' has slipped through the gaps in my learning.  It's a simple enough concept, and is actually used in conjunction with a lot of choke collars (that's what I grew up calling them, but perhaps pronged collar or some other term is more appropriate, since, so long as they're used correctly and appropriately, they do not actually choke).  

The basic idea is that you take a normal buckle-collar and replace both the buckles with two rings or other similar item.  Through the rings you feed a second loop; chain, rope, nylon, what-have-you, that is then joined to what we view as a normal clip leash.  With that design the collar hangs relatively slack, since the base collar is now, essentially, and open neck strap, but if the dog starts pulling or backing away, it gently tightens the pressure.  The second loop becomes straighter (instead of loop or triangle-like), and closes the gap between the two rings on the neck band.

It's often viewed as one of the more human collars, since the pressure is gentle, and so long as the neck band fits right, poses very little risk of choking the dog.  The pressure also lets up right away when the behavior causing it stops, so the feedback is immediate, a good use for training.

The Martingale collar was born of the need to make a collar dogs couldn't back out of.  This is particularly true of breeds like greyhounds, whose heads are smaller than their necks, so backing out of a normal collar is quite the easy task.