[nagdu] leash and harness question

[Buddy Brannan]

On Feb 20, 2009, at 12:54 AM, Nicole B. Torcolini wrote:

> The GDB harness does not have a strap between the legs; I do not see  
> the
> reasoning for this.

I can actually think of a couple, apart from "Well, they've always  
done it that way". I, personally think you get more feedback through  
your harness if it has a martingale. I've worked with both harnesses  
with and without, and I really do think the extra strap for the dog to  
pull into gives you more feedback. Hard to explain any better than  
that. But besides that, the extra strap gives your dog a bit less  
opportunity to squeeze out of its harness. (Yes, I've picked up a  
harness with no dog in it while retrieving my dog from under a chair.  
Yes, it's happened with my martingale-equipped harness. Yes, it is  
somewhat disconcerting.) I note that Southeastern issues a harness  
with a martingale to one particularly nimble breed, which has a  
propensity for putting its front feet through the harness and getting  
out---quite the contortionist--but I can't remember which breed this is.

> It also has a handle that can be easily removed by
> pressing a button on each of the connectors.

Now this is a feature I'd really like for the Seeing Eye (not to  
mention other schools that don't) to implement. It's one big reason  
I've decided to order one of Julie's: my (two) Seeing Eye harnesses  
are both getting a bit ragged, the corners of the handles are coming  
apart, and so on. This wasn't so much a problem with my last dog, but  
my last dog was longer than his harness Handle and Chet isn't. (Chet's  
handle sticks out past his butt about an inch! Had to have the longer  
handle because I kept overstepping him. Fast dog, but pretty short  
front to back, and I have a fairly long stride, I suppose.) So getting  
in and out of cars and squeezing under chairs has done my poor  
harnesses in.

>