The Lighted Dog Collar

by Caryn Cole
 
 

Some items that are designed for safety end up being so amusing that it’s easy to forget that it’s a safety item and begin to treat it like a toy. Some things that come to mind are glow sticks, reflectors placed on clothing in an outline of bizarre pictures that light up when a headlight is shined on them, and the current favorite in our household: the lighted dog collar.

I’m not sure who came up with the idea that a dog should wear a collar with bulbs that light up like a Christmas tree around its neck. I realize it originated as a safety precaution, but in the dark out in the yard at night, especially on a black dog, a lighted dog collar can be a very amusing spectacle. It’s almost as good as the night we discovered that we could break open glow sticks, paint our cats in silly designs all over their bodies and then let them run around in the neighborhood. It’s a jolting image to see a fluorescent smiley face traveling at full speed close to the ground across a dark parking lot.
 

The first time I saw a dog wearing a lighted dog collar I was on the beach at night and I saw what looked like a glowing line running along the beach toward the water. I thought I was hallucinating until I took a closer look and realized that the glowing line was attached to a dog’s neck. After that I was convinced that every dog should wear a lighted collar at night because it looks so cool. We went to the store and bought our pet a lighted dog collar of his very own the next day.

The dog freaked out the first time we fitted him with his lighted dog collar and let him run around the yard in the dark. He acted as though something was chasing him, and he kept trying to bite and attack his own neck. It was kind of like watching a cat chase its own tail. After a while he got used to the collar and stopped noticing it. It was then that the real fun began. We played fetch with him by tossing a glowing frisbee across the yard for him to catch. We sat on the deck and laughed each time the dog caught the frisbee and ran it back to us with his whole head practically glowing, from the combination of the glowing frisbee in his mouth and the lighted dog collar on his neck. We eventually grew tired of laughing at our dog, and went in for the night. Now we only break out the lighted dog collar when we have company. So they can marvel in its freaky magnificence.

What a laugh! :-)