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The Humane Choke Collar
The humane choke collar is similar in many ways to a a standard choke collar. Like a standard choke collar, the humane choker is comprised of links of chain, and both collars respond to you pulling on the lead by tightening around the dog's neck.
The harder you pull on the lead, the closer a standard choke collar will come to choking your dog, which is why they call it a choke collar. If you are strong enough and you were to pull hard enough for long enough, in theory, you could choke a dog to death that way, and you could certainly do terrible damage to his neck muscles with much less effort.
However, in comparison, a humane choker is made with two separate chains, one longer than the other, that are joined together by way of three rings. As a result of the way it is constructed, there is a limit to how tightly a humane choke collar can be drawn closed. The degree to which it would still be possible to choke your dog with a humane choker would, of course, depend on the size of the collar you purchase and the relative size of your dog's neck. Nonetheless, the humane choker has built into it at least some limitation on how tightly it can be drawn.
The humane choker is thought to be more comfortable for a dog than a standard choke collar, because it's design allows the pressure to be more evenly distributed around the animal's neck when the lead is drawn tight.