"In 30 years of practice (including 22 as a veterinary advisor to a police dog section) I have seen numerous severely sprained necks, cases of fainting, transient forleg paralysis and hind leg ataxia after robust use of the choke chain.
My ophthalmology colleagues have decided views on the relation between compression of
the neck, intraocular pressure distrubances and damage to the cervical sympathetic nerve chain resulting in Horner's syndrom. I personally have seen a case of swollen eyes with petechial scleral haemorrhage and a number of temporarily voiceless dogs"
Robin Walker BVetMed MRCVS
“In a retrospective study on spinal pain, injury or changes in dogs conducted in Sweden, Hallgreen (1992) found that 91% of dogs with cervical anomalies experienced harsh jerks on lead or had a long history of pulling on the lead. Uses of chokers was also over represented in this group. This strongly suggests that such corrections are potentially injurious”
Karen Overall MA, VMD, PhD, DACVB Clinical Behavioural Medicine for Small Animals.
Both taken from the APDT leaflet entitled "Let's Teach Them, Not Choke Them" available from: http://www.apdt.co.uk/pdfs/Choke_Chain_leaflet.pdf
