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| Chloe wears my favorite leash, the "Kong Bungee Leash". Although it's good, it's not perfect. |
You may have read some of Chloe's early postings with regards to that ever-elusive mission to find the “perfect dog-walking leash”. Such a leash would be well balanced in weight with its hardware and webbing material, have shock absorbing capability that reduces the tugging motion on your arm when a dog pulls, and have an adequate length allowing a dog the proper distance from the walker.
Several of the leashes that I tested had attributes that were excellent in some ways but not in others. For example several contained fastening hardware that I found to be rather heavy for a 23 pound cocker spaniel, and others contained an elastic shock absorbing design that had way to much snap back capability where they actually bordered on being dangerous, and others I found were just to short in length.
So here we are a few years later I might add, and the
search continues for that perfect leash. This time however, I've considered a
new requirement that the perfect leash should master, ...and that is how to
make the dog walk "hands free". Now you're probably thinking how's
that going to work and why would you need your hands free? Let's just say, if my hands were free the ability to snap
pictures for the blog would be quite a bit easier. It's kind of a hit or miss
proposition of catching that creative image of Chloe, and most of the time it
takes a bit of juggling to hold the leash while lining up the shot, ...so
finding that perfect 'hands free' leash would certainly be welcomed. Obviously
there are a few ways to pull off hands free dog walking such as:
1) Don't use a leash, although the dog needs to be
extremely well behaved to walk calmly at your side, and not be distracted by
other passing dog walkers. Chloe could never fit this picture, so walking leash
free will not work, ...at least not for now.
2) Use a "running leash" where one end is
fastened to the dog and the other end is clipped around your waist. A nice
concept provided both you and the dog have the ability to maintain an even
stride of motion. A concept, I might add that is not understood by Chloe. She
still has a lot of zigging and zagging in her walking style where I would soon
be tripping over her.
3) A new type of hands free walking is the glove or
"hand leash" which slips over the palm of your hand and it locks in
place by inserting your thumb through a loop in the design. It's a cleverly
conceived leash that also has its benefits especially if you don't have the
strength to adequately grasp a normal leash. The glove tightens around your
palm as the dog pulls, automatically preventing the leash from coming out of
your hand. It also allows for the complete movement of your fingers.
In our next blog postings, I'll take a look at some of
these hand free methods.
Here's the earlier postings on finding that perfect leash.
In Search of the Perfect Leash - The ROK Strap
Here's the earlier postings on finding that perfect leash.
In Search of the Perfect Leash - The ROK Strap
That is how our dog park functions, but then again we don't have a lot of these unsavoury amateur dog trainers trying to scare people away with their bad attitudes, poor dog knowledge and anxious un-muzzled dogs on tight leads..
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