Dog leashes can break, did you know?
When should you replace your dog leash?

Have you ever thought about replacing your leash? Well your dog’s leash?

I’m not talking about buying an additional leash.

Though I don’t own a giant variety of leashes myself I totally get you if you are the type to color coordinate your leashes to your coats and have a leash in every color, pattern and material available. Zero judgement there.

It’s just I really want to talk replacement for a moment.

For the longest time I owned only a single leash, a very nice textile Hunter training leash with neoprene backing. The backing didn’t last very long unfortunately from the leash scraping against the pavement. I would leave the leash on Rusty’s harness when practicing stays and the neoprene edges would get scuffed, when it dragged behind him on the recall.

Other than that it quite quickly looked a bit frazzled, the leash was pretty good.

Up until when… it wasn’t. And at a most inconvenient time I might add.

Rusty and I were working on impulse control and doing really well or so I thought. Walking down the footpath past the football pitch I saw a mother and kindergarten-aged son practicing some soccer moves.

Ball!!!!!

Moving ball!!!!

Alright, so far, so good. Rusty was leashed, so management was in place. We had quite some distance to our mother-son soccer team too. In short, we had the perfect training setup.

Rusty was doing great, observing the play, but checking in with me and then finally able to ignore them and focus on the cues I was giving. I was silently beaming.

And then I found myself on my butt, leash in hand, watching Rusty dive for the ball in the distance, unable to comprehend what had happened.

I was somehow still lucid enough to attempt recalling him. It failed miserably.

At that point I remember hoping he would show a little restraint and simply nose bump the football. This as opposed to him using his teeth on it, resulting in yet another ball being turned into a sad punctured sack of leather.  Moreover, it would likely also result in a very distraught kid.

I knew of course it was the ball he was after, but I am 200% sure that the mom was of a different opinion, fear big in her eyes as 50 pounds of cattle dog came storming towards her child. Not good. Not a proud a dog owner moment. All around crappy to be precise.

Miraculously I managed to get to Rusty before any teeth had punctured the ball. I grabbed him by his collar whilst profusely apologizing to the mother and trying to make light of the situation to the kid by explaining that “the dog really loves to play football too”. The kid didn’t seem as fazed as the mom was, and was looking on with interest at what the wolf-like dog was doing to his ball. So, though I was mortified about the incident I thought I would try my best at damage control for the boy’s sake, you know, preventing a lifelong fear of dogs and all that, especially as he seemed more amused than scared and did not seem too affected.

More apologies and an explanation to the mom that the leash broke (I showed her) and I backed away leading Rusty by the collar. I tied his leash through the collar with a double knot, made my way home and then was off straight to the pet store to buy a new leash.

It wasn’t my fault, but then again it was.

I hadn’t thought to inspect his leash. It just hadn’t crossed my mind. Simple as that.

When I went all Sherlock on the leash I saw what the problem had been. The swivel head of the snap had worn down and the swivel eye had become eroded, allowing the head to be pulled cleanly through the eye when Rusty decided playing football was more fun than interacting with me.

In hindsight this makes total sense, as all things do with that benefit.

So…. my fellow dog people of the interweb…

Inspect your swivels regularly and replace your leash when you see there has been too much wear. It could potentially help in not traumatizing unsuspecting people for life, or you know save your dog’s life in an emergency, or… well I could come up with some more dramatically sounding stuff, but you probably get the gist of it.

Links:

(product links to Amazon.de are affiliate links from which I may earn a small commission if you decide to purchase anything. I would love that as it will help me keep this site running)

The Hunter leash we started out with is one of the most comfortable leashes to hold. If you are not going to let it drag on the ground like we did you should be golden. Just remember to check that swivel regularly.

The Ruffwear Roamer leash is great for active outdoorsy stuff. I will do a more thorough write-up about it later, but do know that I would not recommend it for everyday use in which it may be necessary to restrain your dog, as it is flexible and extends!

Fressnapf is our local petstore chain in Austria. We visit the one in St. Johann in Tirol and the people there are always helpful.

Anione is the store brand for Fressnapf. The red replacement leash we bought is this one in medium.