[nagdu] leash and harness question
Buddy Brannan
buddy at brannan.name
Fri Feb 20 08:29:10 UTC 2009
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.
>
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