This story contains graphic descriptions of animal injury.
You might want to rethink your dog’s collar after reading this story.
Veterinarian Amir Anwary has shared the little-known dangers of collars after his much-loved pet, Nala, died in an “absolutely traumatising” incident.
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“I have been seeing a lot of content about people saying that dog collars are very dangerous,” Amir said in a video.
“And my own dog actually died over a year ago because she got strangled by her own collar.
“I’ve never been able to speak about it because I get so emotional every single time.
“I’ll never forget that day. It’s one of those things you never ever think is going to happen to you… until it does.”
He said he wanted to share his heartbreaking story so other pet owners did not end up in the same situation.
Amir, who’s based in South Africa, said he was out on a jog when the accident happened at his home.
He said he normally had his phone on him when he exercised but this was the first time he had left it in the car.
Amir said his brothers were also away, so his dogs were home alone.
After he had finished his run, he returned to the car to see 60 missed calls about his dog, leaving him “freaked out”.
Amir rushed home to see about 30 people standing outside his gate looking into his backyard.
“I then saw my dogs in the corner of the yard. One was sort of hanging and the other one had its mouth close to her neck,” Amir said.
The vet went to jump over his fence and his neighbours suggested he shouldn’t, because they assumed the dogs had been fighting.
Amir said he understood why his neighbours thought this was the case, as he had very large dogs.
“All I see is my dog with his mouth next to my other dog’s neck, so I got closer and what I saw was insane,” Amir said.
“(I saw) the collar around my one dog’s neck, who at this point was dead, as she had suffocated.”
The dog’s collar had twisted while the animals were playing with each other and biting each other’s necks.
There was no loose room for the dog to be able to slip the collar off her neck.
Amir’s neighbours had presumed the dogs were fighting because one of the animals was in anguish due to the suffocation.
“It was so tight, I actually had to cut the collar off,” Amir said.
The vet finished by stressing the importance of vigilance with your dogs.
“(If) they like biting each other’s collars, loosen the collars,” he said.
“If you leave your dogs at home, take their collars off”.
His video has received two million views, with many people sharing similar stories.
“This just happened to me yesterday and we had to cut the collar off,” one said.
“My dog almost died from his collar too,” said another.
“This happened to my dog when I was at home, it was terrifying and we had to cut the collar off,” shared a third.
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