A litter is a moving pile of the same dog. By the second week the only reliable way to know who has fed, who is gaining and who was quiet all afternoon is a colour round the neck — and until you have one, every weight chart you keep is a guess written down neatly.

These are twelve soft cord collars in twelve bright colours, adjustable from 14 to 28.5cm on a slip-knot so the same collar keeps working as a puppy grows through those first weeks. The pack comes on a card with a colour-coded name chart printed on the back, so whoever is on the night shift can put a name to a colour without waking anybody up to ask. The cord is soft and intended for newborn skin rather than for holding a dog.

• 12 collars in 12 different colours
• Adjustable from 14 to 28.5cm, on a slip-knot design
• Colour-coded name chart printed on the back of the card
• Soft cord, described as suitable for sensitive pups
• For identification only — not for lead attachments or ID tags
• Sold as a single 12-pack

Not a collar in the usual sense. The maker is explicit that these are for identification purposes only: nothing clips to them, not a lead and not an ID tag, and treating one as a real collar is how a puppy gets hurt. A cord collar also has to be checked daily and let out as the litter grows, because at that age a fit on Monday is tight by Friday. Nothing has been supplied about what the cord is made of, whether the collars can be washed, or how young is too young to put one on, so if this is your first litter, take that question to your vet or to an experienced breeder rather than to a pack of collars.

Who it's for: breeders and anyone whelping at home who needs to tell near-identical puppies apart from day one, and who wants their feeding and weight records to refer to an actual puppy.