Hi Jackie. The recommendations in this article are based on experience watching young puppies develop injuries like OCD from early excessive activity. I understand your problem, but I also would disagree that it’s natural that dogs run around this much when they are young. It’s also worth remembering that dogs have been bred a long way away from wolves, and are much much more likely to develop problems during growth. Having said all this, leash activity and calm off leash walking is very unlikely to cause anywhere near as much harm as uninhibited play or fetch games for example.

Hi Anne. This is an excellent question and highly relevant to the topic. From vets’ perspective, it’s a black-and-white issue. We feel that neck restraint is problematic, and in fact more so the more excitable a dog becomes. It’s actually only considered appropriate for dogs that don’t get excited and don’t pull and of course these are rare.
Our concerns are that the neck is the last place in the body you want to apply force, even if it is effective. There are certainly instances of damage occurring through traction on the nerves, blood vessels and trachea. The second issue is that restriction of the neck appears to increase the chance of a dog having an aggressive response.
Our approach is to use harnesses, especially the front attach variety or head collars. The former are now much more favoured. There’s a link in the article to what I consider to be the best one available at the moment. I can tell you that when I switched my very excitable Jack Russell onto one of these he pulled considerably less, even when it was attached at the rear access point.