The side effects of a dog calming pheromone collar are one of the worries that used to occupy my thoughts in the past. I did not have good experience breathing in some air freshener smell for a long time, so I always wondered if dogs feel the same with pheromone particles wafting around them all day from their collars.
In all honesty, the worst side effect of a pheromone collar is that it does not affect your dog at all. It simply means it is ineffective. As for negative side effects, they are purely a collar thing, not exclusively a pheromone collar problem. Before I talk about them, let’s understand how a dog pheromone calming collar works.
How Does Dog Calming Collar Work
The dog calming collars work by exuding pheromones over time upon the opening of its package. The Adaptil Calm On-The-Go-Collar, the most reviewed dog calming collar on Amazon, is one example that uses pheromones.
Some other brands like the Calm Paws Dog Calming Collar, as shown above, uses essential oils and its organic and natural fragrance to calm the dogs. Most of them consist mainly of lavender, although there are alternative scents that are still pretty effective in calming dogs.
Either method, the fact that it relies on smell to bring about its magic hints at the presence of expiry date. Yes, these collars are not like your usual other types of collars. They do not follow a one-time purchase model like the rest. They are usually packaged in a plastic wrapper and once open and exposed to the environment, the strength of the pheromones will gradually decrease.
According to many manufacturers who sell these dog calming pheromones collars on Amazon, the effectiveness usually lasts around 30 days for their respective products. That is why you will see them being sold in packs like this bundle on Amazon by Sentry.
What Are Pheromones
Pheromones are chemical substances organically produced by the glands of animals. They have a physiological effect on their kind, and in the case of dogs, it induced calmness in them. There are studies conducted on the efficacy of pheromones on dogs, like this one in Korea and the results were largely positive.
Positive Side Effects
Pheromones can bring about many positive behavioral changes to your dogs, other than just getting it to chill. Unless you want your dog to stay excited, you may want to consider getting pheromones emitting collars as the omnipotent solution to every kind of dog’s agitation. These are the list of positive side effects that I would love to have
- Separation Anxiety
- Car Anxiety
- Fireworks
- Social Interactions
- Reduce Excessive Barking
- Reduce Chewing
- Fear Of Dark Places
- Crate Training
The effects are both beneficial to you, as well as your dog. It is just like us humans. I would prefer a fragrant smell over an odorless world anytime, and I believe that dogs are the same.
Negative Or No Side Effects
To be honest, there’s not much of a negative effect by having a smell discharging device 24/7 around your dog. We are after all talking about pheromones and fragrance of the flora, not anything pungent like a durian.
I am more concerned about pheromones having no effect on the dog. Just look at the reviews of the most popular dog calming collar on Amazon. Here is the link again. Notice that many are saying that it does not work and complaining about the product?
Well, this is in every way possible as not all dogs will react to pheromones. It is just like humans. Some people do not feel anything from an aromatherapy session but experience a much effective outcome when they drink a beer after a hard day’s work accompanied by a bar of chocolate. That’s me by the way 🙂
So if the pheromones collars do not work for you and your dog, there are still many other ways you can calm it down. This is also the reason I do not recommend going for the bundle deal for multiple collars. The intention to take advantage of the savings that accompany the bulk purchase may bite back if your dog does not react well to pheromones.
Final Thoughts
All in all, pheromones have been proven to be effective to calm dogs down, and here spawning a market that uses this fact. One of the products born out of it is the dog pheromones collar.
It has shown inconsistent results on dogs on the individual level, so dog owners should be prepared to accept the fact that he or she may have just gotten a white elephant. The key here is to reduce the damage to your wallet by buying just 1 for testing.
If you need a recommendation, try the Relaxivet Adjustable Calming Collar. You have my word when I say that it worked on 2 of my dogs. But, of course, as a disclaimer, it might not work for you. And in the event you want to look for other brands to continue your experiment, I have written a list of dog calming collars that I have heard positive things about and one of them might just work for you.
