A Brief History of the Dog Collar

 

The Car sets cover, so often taken for granted, has a long and illustrious history. Anyone fortunate enough to share their life with a dog in the present day is participating in an ancient tradition every time they place a collar around their dog's neck and take it out for a walk. The dog collar is a global link between people in the present, no matter their nationality, religion, or political affiliation, which also connects them firmly with the past and each other.

According to the AVMA (American Veterinary Medical Association), 43,346,000 households in the United States own dogs, and the Insurance Information Institute, in their 2017 CE survey, concluded Americans spent $69.4 billion on their dogs in that year alone. It is no surprise that dogs are among the most popular and best-loved pets in the present day, but the designation of “man's best friend” is no recent development. Dogs and humans have been walking together since ancient times and the Dog lead has been the common denominator in every era.

Oldest Depiction of Leashed Dogs

The basic design of the collar has not changed since the time of ancient Mesopotamia but variations on the collar, specifically ornamentation and style, reflect the values of the various world cultures that kept dogs. These subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, alterations to the central design can be quite telling in the role dogs played and how they were regarded in different time periods and cultures.

The oldest depiction of what seems to be dogs on leashes – suggesting some sort of collar – comes from the region of Shuwaymis in modern-day northeastern Saudi Arabia. In a November 2017 CE article in Science magazine, author David Grimm describes the work of archaeologist Maria Guagnin of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany. Guagnin and her team cataloged over 1,400 rock art panels at Shuwaymis and another region, Jubbah, which include depictions of hunting dogs. At Shuwaymis, one panel shows thirteen dogs and a male hunter; two of the dogs are linked to the hunter by lines which have been interpreted as leashes. This panel is dated to 8,000 years ago.

Mesopotamian Collars

The find should come as no surprise since early development of the Martingale collar can be traced to the ancient Mesopotamian region and others nearby. The ancient Mesopotamians (probably the Sumerians) most likely invented the collar but, as with the question of where dogs were first domesticated, this topic is still debated. The original Mesopotamian dog collar was a simple cord thrown around the dog's neck which the owner would use to control the animal. In time, this cord was replaced by a collar, probably of cloth or leather, which attached to a leash or long stick.

Dogs were associated with Gula, the Sumerian goddess of healing and health, because it was noted that they healed their wounds through licking them. Dogs were also, however, associated with Inanna/Ishtar, goddess of love, sex, and war, who was often represented as holding her dogs on leashes attached to thick collars. Dogs, therefore, came to symbolize health, vitality, and protection – from both natural and supernatural threats – as exemplified in dog figurines and amulets.

In time, as Mesopotamian civilization became more complex, so did the dog collar; by the time of the fall of the Assyrian Empire in 612 BCE, the collar was quite ornate among the upper-class and, generally, had evolved from a simple rope or cord to a kind of slip-lead and then to a snug-fitting band which was probably pushed over a dog's head to fit around the neck.

The Collar in Persia

Puppy harness in ancient Persia are said to have been quite ornate – dogs of the upper class reportedly wore “trappings of gold” and were given fine linen to wear – while collars of the lower class were most likely made of leather or simple cloth. Whichever class one belonged to, dogs were kept for protection, herding, hunting, and companionship. Dogs were so highly valued by the Persians that one's final destination in the afterlife was partly determined by how well – or poorly – one had treated dogs. It is, therefore, not surprising that those who could afford it gave their dogs high-quality collars.

 

Most depictions of dogs from ancient Persia, however, show dogs without collars (such as on the ceramics found at the ancient city of Susa) and even early art depicting hunting scenes shows uncollared dogs chasing the game. Later Sassanian Art (224-651 CE) gives the impression of the ornate collars of the wealthy, but no surviving documentation provides evidence of lower-class dog collars. Such collars must have existed, however, as people of every social class seem to have valued dogs equally.

Ancient Egyptian Collars

Collars in Egypt followed a similar paradigm of simple-to-complex, but the Egyptians held animals, generally, in higher esteem than most other cultures and collars reflected that value. The early Egyptian collar was also simply a rope but was a recognizable collar by the time of the Old Kingdom (c. 2613-2181 BCE). The collar developed during the Middle Kingdom (2040-1782 BCE) and, by the time of the New Kingdom (c. 1570 - c. 1069 BCE), had become works of art celebrating dogs through intricate design and ornamentation. Dogs were associated with the jackal-god Anubis, guide to the afterlife, and collars began to take on grander designs reflecting dogs' elevated status. Two dog collars from the tomb of the nobleman Maiherpri (from the New Kingdom) are ornamented with brass studs and images of lotus flowers, dogs on the hunt, and one of them even gives the dog's name: Tantanuit. The practice of putting a dog's name on its collar, commonplace today, first appears in ancient Egypt.

Collars in Ancient Greece

Egypt's long-standing association with Greece through trade most likely influenced the Grecian dog collar, but the Greeks needed a collar which would not only control the animal but protect it from predators such as wolves. The ancient Greek invention of the modern-day choke-chain collar and spike collar was inspired by this need. The Greeks also valued the dog, as evidenced by their regular appearance in Greek mythology and Greek literature such as the three-headed dog Cerberus who guarded the gates of Hades and Odysseus' loyal dog Argos, among others. Plato even claimed that the dog is a true philosopher owing to its ability to tell friend from enemy and truth from falsehood without instruction.

Greek collars express this admiration through elaborate ornamentation and bright colors. Evidence of this comes from the Greek drinking cups (rhyta or rhytons, plural and rhyton, singular) and other tableware which are ornamented with images of collared dogs. Few actual dog collars have survived but collars in art and these figurative collars are thought to represent actual collars.

Roman Collars

The Romans inherited the concept of the dog collar from the Etruscans as evidenced by wall paintings in the Etruscan Tomb of the Augurs, dating to c. 530-520 BCE, but thought to depict a more ancient ritual. One scene in the tomb depicts a dog wearing a collar, nail turned in toward the neck, designed to enrage the animal and cause it to attack when the leash was pulled; this same sort of device was used by the Romans in their games in the arena, linking the Etruscan design to the later Roman.

The Romans incorporated Greek innovations as well, such as the spiked and choke-chain collars. Dog collars in ancient Rome took many forms from simple bands of leather to the thick, iron-spiked collars worn by the Molossian breed in war, to brightly-colored collars worn by racing dogs. Whatever type of collar the dog wore, and for whichever purpose, the collar was always pragmatic and utilitarian. Even the gold collar mentioned by Pliny the Elder (l. 23-79 CE) was given to a dog because it was thought to calm the animal and stop it from barking unnecessarily.

 

The Maltese, a favorite breed of upper-class Roman women especially, wore a delicate collar often ornamented with attached bells, and the Vertragus, ancestor of the Italian Greyhound and popular racing dog, wore a light-weight collar. Thick leather or metal collars were worn by fighting dogs and the breeds used by the military.

Mesoamerican Collars

Independently, the dog collar developed in Mesoamerica where the Maya, Aztecs, and Tarascans raised dogs as a food source, for protection, and as a spirit animal. Dog collars in these cultures varied by the owner's social class with more ornate collars, obviously, belonging to dogs of nobility if one is to judge from engravings and murals. The respect shown to dogs is evidenced in the colors and ornamentation used. The Aztecs believed that dogs pre-dated humans and were due the same high level of respect one owed one's elders.

Dogs in all three cultures were considered a kind of bridge between the civilized world of human beings and the natural world of the spirits and the gods. Dogs, therefore, could act as guides through the perils which awaited after death to lead a soul to the safety of paradise through the dark underworld.