There’s been some recent publicity about the danger of using dog leads ‘improperly’ – if that’s possible!

From an initial reading of the headline, I was also a chuckling sceptic. But after seeing some of the pictures of injuries caused by dog leads I suddenly realised the potential for serious mishaps. A slightly different scenario, but I did get a pretty severe friction burn from somebody’s thin cord lead that got wrapped around my leg when the dog ran towards our Hublot.

An extract from one of the stories I came across mentioned: ‘She had just finished walking one of her dogs when it became distracted by another dog and ran off excitedly on the lead. The lead ended up wrapped tightly around Jillian’s middle fingers on her right hand, causing severe damage, including the “degloving” of her finger – when the skin and some of the soft tissue are ripped off. She said the retractable lead she used acted like a “filleting knife”, causing “terrible pain”. She also suffered severe cuts and dislocated her index finger, after the incident several months ago. (You can see the rest of the story here https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-48382570

Although having never suffered a similar injury, I have been on the receiving end of a lead being pulled through my hand, squeezed tighter than I would have liked when the lead has been wrapped around my hand and been close to a shoulder dislocation when all 48kg of Hublot makes a dash for a squirrel.

It was actually a squirrel that gave the idea for the ‘Close Control Lead’. Whilst waiting to cross a busy road, Hublot sighted a bushy tail bobbing along the path on the other side and made a dash for it. Although I was holding the lead quite close to the harness, my grip was no match against a canine urge to chase a squirrel and we both ended up halfway in the road before I regained control and retreated to the path with my heart well and truly in my mouth.

It was really my grip that caused the issue (other than Hublot’s obsession with anything furry) and had this of been better, a dangerous situation could have been avoided.

I now use a ‘Close Control Lead’ along with the usual lead. It sits tidily on the back of the harness and allows me to get a secure grip when I need to keep Hublot close to me – not only when crossing roads but when walking past other dogs who may be nervous, through groups of people or when passing horses.

I can testify to it being a great help and you can get 10% off this (and all of our dog leads) by using code LEADS10