What Type of Leash Should You Use?

We dive into a conversation about every type of leash we can think of. We give the pros and cons of each type and explain when we use each type of leash.

Let us know if you have any questions!

Episode Transcript

(00:16):
shaping the game. Mark your right, it's never the
same. Big dogs, small dogs, every
kind. If you love canines, TuneIn,
rewind, laugh and learn level ofyour game.
Suburban canine, remember the name.
Welcome to the pack you are. Officially.
All right, dude Sickles. You ready?

(00:37):
Dude Sickles. That's a pretty strong open,
huh? I feel like that's a worth of
loss would use pretty often. For sure, never said it before.
Dude sickles. Dude.
He knows, yeah. Deuteronomy.
That's one I would throw out. Deuteronomy.
Wow, little Bible reference. Little Bible reference.

(00:59):
Didn't see that coming. Today's topic, we're doing
leashes. But before we do that, we're
going to start with a question someone had asked on a previous
episode. Just knock this out, get it out
of the way, give them a legit answer, and then move on to
leashes. Lost didn't like this.
Nelson, you missed as part of the conversation because the

(01:21):
question didn't have to do with leashes.
But then that means we can neveranswer a question unless we
dedicate an entire episode to it.
So I feel like that puts us in atough position.
I'm still pretty upset about it.I don't think we should be doing
it, and I'm sorry to the person who posted the question.
And I get that we should answer it somewhere, but it should be
in an episode where it makes sense.
So maybe we should just change this episode.

(01:43):
We could make this a 2 minute episode, answer their question,
push end and then re record a new one for Alicia's Let's play
it by ear. Let's just see how it goes that.
'D be pretty legit. A custom episode for every
question that's going to get time consuming 2.
Minute episodes to flood YouTubewith.
Well, velocity, if you're not too butthurt about it, could you
read the question? Or are you like OK?

(02:05):
I mean I'm I'm I am hurt about it but I'll read the question
for you guys. User on Spotify would like to
know if we could talk more aboutteaching a dog to run away when
they are uncomfortable. How would you practice that
instead of your dog getting selfreinforcement from choosing

(02:25):
fight instead of flight? It's a really good question.
That's an extremely solid question.
And that's a question that couldhave a really, really long
answer. Maybe it should be the whole
episode. Anyone listening right now is
just going to have to have to guess what are where are we
going to end today? Leashes are still stuck on this.
Do you want to start Nelson? You want me to?

(02:48):
I can start, that's fine. It's funny enough.
It is something that we work on.One of the things that I try to
tell people all the time is whenyour dog gets uncomfortable,
they have to know what to do. Unless you're always going to be
there and running away or escaping or moving to their bed

(03:10):
or moving to their crate or moving to a different room on
their own is really, really goodbecause I feel very very easy
telling other people, hey, clearly the dog is done.
Leave it alone. Nobody go and talk to it anymore
and it's most people except for kids are are going to kind of

(03:31):
pick up on that anyways. How I start to work on it is a
little dependent on the dog and how far they are into training
and how bad the situation actually was.
If the dog growls or you know, it has taken like little snaps
without actually biting anybody,then after teaching it heal and

(03:55):
its obedience commands and everything like that, that would
probably be the the preface for all of the answers.
It's at that point that I would have the dog around whatever it
is that makes it nervous if it'speople, if it's kids, if it's,
you know, just large gatherings,big parties, that kind of stuff.
And as it starts to either get nervous and not do anything

(04:16):
stupid, then I will walk into itand shoo it away.
If it's getting kind of, I don'tknow, too close to a kid and not
actually backing off and it starts to growl or it starts,
you know, gives a snap or something along those lines, I
will say no, I'll go up to it. I'll give it a tug and then I'll
shoo it away from the kid. But essentially, you are

(04:38):
correcting bad behavior still. Anything that you don't actually
like has to be corrected to whatever is significant to that
dog. And then after that, you're
really practicing walking into the dog, shooing that dog away,
getting it out of that situationso that it can start to learn.
There's better tactics in avoiding than there are.

(05:00):
Let me fix the problem myself. Are we done?
I'm going to. Say Steve, he's done.
See, I thought, I thought we were going to go way more
extreme into it and what I was going to recommend to the person
and maybe cover you're going to get into this and yours is our
rattle state snake avoidance video that we have on our
website. And I mean, that's a way more

(05:20):
extreme example of this advice where you know, you're trying to
get the dog to learn when something bad is going on that
you shouldn't be near that thing.
And again, we get with the rattlesnake, that's a way more
extreme situation than what Nelson was talking about, of
just like a kid that you don't want the dog by or a situation
happening in the house. But in my brain I was thinking

(05:42):
that's where we were going to gowith it.
So I guess I'm interested to seewhere you go with this cubby.
Well. I think we're seeing the
question differently. So I took the question to mean
you have a couple dogs. One dog is smelling dog 2 is
smelling dog one, dog one is nervous, but dog 2 is not being
bad or doing anything terrible, and you need dog one to go away

(06:04):
without biting dog 2. So rattlesnake aversion, you
know, is about convincing the dog that that thing is bad and
you should stay away from it. And I took this question to mean
that the other thing is not bad,the dog's just not comfortable.
So how do you teach the dog to, you know, self soothe, right or
or find some alternative besidessnapping to say quit smelling me

(06:27):
right now. And you know, some dogs do this
on their own really well and some don't.
And therein lies the problem. So I bet a lot of listeners are
like this isn't that hard. My dog just would get up and
leave. But some dogs don't know to do
that. So what I would say is I would
be hesitant to use the place command here.
And the reason would be I would like the dog to learn to go away

(06:50):
from whatever's going on, and I'd like him to go somewhere
comfy, whether it's a bed, a cage and whatever.
But I don't want him to go thereand feel like he's in a command.
And then now do I have to release him?
Or if I don't, then what happens?
So I think you run the risk of kind of messing up your place
command or putting your dog in aweird mental spot where they're

(07:13):
going to place and then they're staying there because they're
waiting for you to let them out and you had no intention of
putting them in place. So for that reason, I wouldn't
use place. I would teach the dog some sort
of work word. Like you said, Nelson, I'd shoo
him away. But I'd see like if you're
watching it and one dog is whatever, smelling them too much

(07:33):
and they're getting nervous, I'dwalk and, you know, kind of in
between and I'd shoo them back And I would try to attach a word
to it, you know, back, come on, buddy, back, back, back and shoo
him back. And then I would try to have
something good happen and show him somewhere else he can go.
But then you have to then of course, stop dog two from
following and just doing the same thing.
So there's times this won't really work all that well.

(07:54):
It'd be more useful at the dog park.
If then the dogs are going to like our daycare, then the dogs
are going to like there's five dogs wrestling.
Somehow this guy got in the middle of it and you just want
to teach him to leave. I would use back, back, back,
shoe him back. Lots of reward.
You know, I probably just praiseand petting and belly rubs,
whatever when he gets back. And then through time, you see

(08:14):
it happening from a distance. You see his tail go down, his
eyes get wide, whatever you knowto be his warning signs and
back, you know, Ralph back, back.
And when he does praise him, andI think through time, the vast,
well, I should say, I know through time, the vast majority
of dogs that's going to work foryou might have to show them
somewhere else they can go and teach them how to get farther

(08:34):
back. So they don't just because if
they just go 3 feet away, the other dog's probably just going
to follow them. They're not going to pick up on
that signal. So those are my thoughts kind of
in a nutshell. So I guess in addition to place
command, I, I wouldn't use placein that situation just like

(08:56):
Covey recommended. But a lot of that too is because
you don't, the other dog might not know place and just follows
it to the bed and like now your dog feels trapped there and has
no escape. That could kind of add to the
problem there. I guess when you're dealing with
another dog, I could see where that's a little bit different
than kids just because I don't know, kids I feel like are a

(09:22):
little easier to tell them, hey,the dog is working or hey, he's
tired or anything like that and the kids won't continue to
follow. As opposed to the dogs.
You you need to be able to have control enough to actually back
those dogs off. Yes, for sure.
So overall, though, I think the key is we need to be the one

(09:43):
responsible for stopping whatever was making the dog
nervous from going back up to them.
And you covered that, Nelson. But whether it's kids, whether
it's another dog, we can't abdicate that responsibility.
We still have to do that. But if our dog learns, you know,
to go back on their own or you're 10 feet away, you see a
building, you say buddy back, hebacks up and the other dog goes

(10:03):
to follow. And then now hopefully the other
dog listens to you and you can say, George, stop, you know, or
leave it or whatever. Now problem solved.
And pretty soon enough times of telling one dog back, telling
the other dog leave it and it quits being an issue.
For sure. All right.
Are we moving on to leashes? I think we should do it.
I thought we were going to make the whole thing about this.

(10:25):
We're at 10 minutes. It could be a 10 minute micro
episode. You see, I'm just saying like
six of these going out every week, you think?
We can help publish 35 episodes per week.
Good luck keeping up. So I wore a leash today just for
this. Sure did it looks.
Good. Thank you.
It makes me feel more comfortable.

(10:46):
I can tell you that at some point we need to get into why I,
but I think we all know leashes are the most important dog
training tool, right? Both for training dogs and for
our own safety as trainers. You don't have a leash, you're
in for a world of hurt at some point.
So we have a list. We have a list of every type of

(11:07):
leash we can think of, right? Yeah, I mean, we definitely do.
I mean, we first have, I want tomake a statement and then I want
to hear both of your thoughts onthis statement.
So I'm not going to say if I agree or disagree with the
statement. It's up to you guys to decide
which way you feel. OK?
A leash is the most important training tool.

(11:28):
Didn't I just say that? I don't know.
Did you? I feel like I literally said
those exact. I think I just said a leash is
literally the most important training tool.
I wish we could rewind this and listen.
I think those are my words our. Listeners see Definitely no.
But I wonder if Vloss is settingus up for like one of those
sneaky answers. And like, no, a brain is

(11:49):
obviously. Needed.
Before a leash. So barring that though, I would
agree that a leash is probably the most important dog training
tool. For sure.
So full agreement with that statement on this episode.
I couldn't even make an argumentand.
Not even for treats or anything else.

(12:11):
Definitely not for. Treats.
I mean if you call a relationship a training tool
then sure a relationship with the dog is more important, but I
feel like that's a stretch. Right, That's not a tool, it's a
byproduct of the process. Yep.
But if I had to choose between building a relationship with the
dog or using a leash, I would choose relationship.

(12:34):
It would just be a different different training process.
But I do like the way that that sounds the byproduct of the
process and not everybody thinksabout it that way.
Well, where are we going to start or what leash are we going
to start with? I think let's just jump into
them and let's talk about sort of what the number one leash we
would recommend is. And I think all three of us are

(12:55):
going to have the same app, the same answer, which is your
standard 6 foot leash, right? I mean, that's going to be sort
of like our go to leash, right? I was going to say 4 foot, but
sure. 6 feet well, but 4 foot's not the standard. 6 foot is your
standard leash. It's not the standard, but

(13:17):
easily obtained, so they are everywhere.
You're saying you would rather have a four foot leash than a
six foot? If I'm training, sure.
There's only one thing that I could think of where having the
extra 2 feet would be beneficialat all.
What should be and what is that?Yeah, what's?
Like recall training or them going to the bathroom anytime I

(13:41):
actually want the dog to be far away from me.
Sounds like a couple things. What do I say?
I mean by that now stay. I could do with four feet.
Why not 3 feet then? Three feet depends on the dog's
height. I haven't met a dog that's small
enough that 4 feet is too littlewhere I've met plenty of dogs.

(14:04):
Sure that a 2 foot leash could work, but again, at least per
stay. What about like an 18 inch lead?
What about that? Now are you?
Just going to keep getting 6 inches. 6 inches is the optimum,
that's what. Can I ask you, Nelson, what do
you use on a daily basis? Are you using a four foot leash

(14:24):
or a six foot leash? On a daily basis I am using a
six foot leather leash. Why?
Are you answering 4 feet? That doesn't make any sense.
Because I don't I don't bring the leash with me absolutely
everywhere and like like I don'tswitch leashes every house call
that I go to. Otherwise it would be a four
foot biothane leash for sure. That would that would be my

(14:48):
like, hey, if you had one leash that you can carry around
everywhere, what would it be? It would probably be one of
those. Sounds a lot harder to slip lead
an aggressive dog with a four foot biothane versus A6 foot
leather. You know, I haven't really had
too many issues slip leading a dog with the biothane leash.
I could see where 4 foot versus 6 foot might make a difference,

(15:11):
but realistically I am crap at lassoing and so I'm getting as
close as I'm getting no matter what and the two extra feet
don't don't really help me. OK, so Nelson likes a four foot
leash. I would like to fix.
Nelson is saying you prefer biothane to leather.

(15:31):
Yes. Why?
Because not, not for the feel ofit, not because oh man, this is
the the best. You know, I prefer leather for
sure, but biothane I can clean extremely easily and I don't
have to worry about did I leave it out in the rain as I tend to
leave things around quite a bit.I'm absent minded that way.

(15:52):
So Biothane just kind of really helps me out there.
For people who don't know, what is bio thing Nelson?
It's like a rubber coating around nylon fibers and so it's
it's pretty durable of a leash. Dogs can bite through it, but
they can they can chew through aleather leash as well.

(16:13):
So I haven't seen any differencethere, but it's waterproof and
the fact that it, I mean, like you just wipe it off and, and go
where you can ruin a leather leash very easily by leaving it
out in the rain. So you know, that kind of stuff.
And again, for training, I'm constantly stepping on leashes.
I'm their dogs are dragging leashes around that kind of

(16:35):
stuff. And I don't like them to drag
around leather leashes because it's nice and I'd be upset.
And so again, a biothane leash is just super easy to to clean
off. It really helps out there.
All right, I'm I'm not anti biothane by any stretch.
I don't tend to leave my leashesin the rain, so that's hasn't

(16:57):
been a worry for me. I prefer leather for sure.
It feels better in the hand to me.
Broken in leather it feels. Better in the hand for sure.
And I think a lot comes down to like, if you're a client
listening, you use what's comfortable for you based on how
much time you spend with the dog.
I have dogs, I have leashes in my hand a lot.
I can't imagine not using a leather leash on a daily basis.

(17:19):
If I show up to a clients and they have biothane, I don't like
inwardly or outwardly groan and like, oh, it's going to be
terrible. I checked the clip, you know, to
make sure it seems like a decentone.
And very often I won't use it because it's a silver clip,
which I don't think we had in our notes.
But that is really important that everyone think about.
The clip on a leash makes all the difference.

(17:40):
If the clip is silver, most likely it's going to be a hollow
just piece of crap. Like I don't know what metal
they make them out of, but I've seen them sheer more times than
I can count silver. If it's silver, it doesn't
necessarily mean that it's bad. It could be stainless steel,
which is what our newer leather leashes use, and stainless steel
obviously is great. Generally I recommend looking

(18:02):
for a like a gold like it's brass and a brass clip is almost
always a very very strong clip. But if I show up to a client's
house and they have a silver clip on there and I can tell
it's not stainless steel, I could carry less what the leash
is made of. I'm switching it to mine right
away, which I'm wearing mine around my shoulders.
A couple of reasons I do that. One is so I have it to clip and

(18:25):
replace the 1:00 they have if needed and also it's great for
safety, which we might get into in a little bit here.
It also looks really cool. Yeah, like a dog.
Trainer when you do that. See and I need all the help I
can get. Looking cool.
So the leash thing makes a big difference for sure.
On clips you talked about brass ones and you mentioned how we
have stainless steel ones right now.

(18:47):
We used to use brass exclusively, but during the
COVID area a lot of the brass ones ended up having issues
where they weren't. The spring wasn't tight enough
and that's why we made the switch as a company.
So while brass ones are generally better, they don't
break as easily. Be careful because there was a
big batch of them for quite a while that had some loose

(19:08):
springs in there. And that was like a separate.
Issue, I'd say like a COVID, COVID production issue.
There was discussion of them being shipped off to production
and I think it was Taiwan compared to being produced in a
different Asian country. I don't really remember all the
details, but I just remember there were issues for a little

(19:30):
bit there and I don't know if they're rectified or not because
we switched clips so. Yeah, and it's just all the
supply chain problems right through everything out of whack
I. Could imagine.
All right, so cover that. We have thickness of leash on
there. Nelson, do you want to spend?
I don't think we need to spend much time, going to spend a
second on that. On the thickness of like the

(19:53):
leather or the nylon or. Of anything, and if you want me
to cover it, I'm happy to. I mean, I can cover what I
think, which is tends to be right.
I like leashes that are thinner as opposed to thicker,
especially because I tend to loop the leash so I can have a
better grip. And like leash, for example, the

(20:16):
ones that I really don't like atall are the rope, the nylon rope
leashes. Those are very, very annoying
because then you're holding too much and they kind of rub your
hand raw. If if you're using it a lot,
like it's, again, if you were training your own dog and you
were going to be using it a ton,you'd probably notice it.
So you're talking like the paracord ones?

(20:39):
Not the paracord ones, to be honest with you, I actually
haven't used any of those, any of the paracord woven leashes.
But I'm thinking like the the ones that look like you're
mountain climbing, you know, notthe again, woven paracord.
But I don't I really don't know how else to put it other than

(21:01):
that. But those are can be really,
really annoying and I just don'tlike how thick they are.
I've seen leather leashes that are thicker than they are wide
and that becomes really, really annoying where, you know, puppy
leashes don't bother me nearly as much, probably because of how
thin they are. But you obviously you wanted to

(21:23):
be strong enough to handle the dog that you're actually
handling. So the dog in front of you will
dictate a lot of a lot of what you're using.
Absolutely. And I think a lot of clients and
you're just dog owners don't realize how many types of
leashes there are. So if you have a Pomeranian

(21:43):
you're and you go for a leather leash, you're going to want a
puppy lead. Not only is it way lighter for
the dog, it's not going to weighthem down as much.
They also can't pull that hard. The puppy lead's going to feel
fine in your hand. If you've got a Rottweiler, a
full grown rot, the puppy lead in is more likely to break.
I've never seen a leather puppy lead break, but like it could,

(22:03):
it'll also take like, I don't know, one or two like hard bites
for a full grown rot to get through it.
It also is going to feel terrible in your hand if that
dog's pulling some, the kind of the rope burn feeling.
So just important to think through that.
There's different sizes and likeyou said, Nelson leather leashes
are not all the same. I've had a lot of clients say
like, Oh, I've got a leather leash and then they feel mine on

(22:25):
like lesson 3 or whatever and they're like, like, whoa, this
is so much better because they have a cheap leather leash and
it's like pleather or I don't know, right?
Like it's kind of thin. It's not the same.
And they feel like an actual nice leather leash and then they
realize the difference. So and my biggest thing, the
biggest take away here for clients is get something that's

(22:47):
comfortable in your hand and that works for your dog, that's
not too heavy for them, but that's also not so thin that
it's a safety hazard. Definitely.
And for those of you who can't see Covey is wearing what my
favorite leash would be, which what do you think that is 1/4
inch thick? Do you think that gets up to 1/4
of an inch or maybe not quite? I honestly don't know what I

(23:08):
mean. Seems like maybe, yeah.
Do we want to cover this one next and I can just walk through
what this is? Go for it.
So the leash I have on is calledan over the shoulder leash and
this one, I've had this exact leash here since 2006.
It was made by Blackjack's leather company.
The owner Joe has since passed away unfortunately, but

(23:31):
Blackjacks is still in business.They have new owners Richard and
Katie. Shout out to you guys.
Blackjacks is awesome to make really good leather.
So you can see this has and guystell me if I'm not in the frame,
but this has a brass clip on it.You can see it.
The leash is braided. There's this like little rivet
here for like prettiness, but this rivet doesn't add strength.

(23:52):
There's no stitching. So there's nothing to like fray
through time and break. Same with it any anywhere else
you can see there's it's braidedhere as well.
But this is an over the shoulderleash.
So you can see it has this big loop.
Can you guys see that? Am I kind of in front of the
camera here? And what this loop does is it
allows you to put it over your shoulder like this and then now

(24:15):
you've got leash here and you can then have the dog hands free
at your side. This is an amazing leash for
quite a few things. One is and 1st off, this is for
like a dog who's pretty well trained.
You can use it on a dog who's not well trained and you just
hold it like a normal leash, like you know this, let me get

(24:35):
this excess. You can just hold on your right
hand. That's fine but it's made to be
over your shoulder and then you can let go with your left hand
and tell your dog heal and they just walk at your side and you
can grab it if needed. Super nice to be able to use
your cell phone if it's cold, put your hands in your pockets,
do many many other things. I think if you have a dog you

(24:56):
plan on getting well trained it's crazy not to have an over
the shoulder leash. The only reason I could see is
if you say like my dog pulls toomuch and I'm never going to fix
that, then maybe it doesn't add value.
The only thing I'll say for the trainers out there is if you're
slip leading a dog for safety, this is not as nice and it's got
this huge loop and it's harder to then kind of get your slip

(25:20):
lead going. It's not impossible.
I slip lead dogs with this all the time.
But if I'm going into a house call where I know there's a
very, very, very high likelihoodthat I'm going to be slip
leading a dog, I'm going to use a new stiff standard 6 foot
weather leash. It's going to be easier to get
distance from your body because this one is so broken in.
It's very soft. And it's also just easier to

(25:42):
slip lead with a a normal and versus the over the shoulder.
So I would guess, I mean I've slip leaded thousands of dogs on
this leash and it's been fine, but I would never, it's never my
go to if I know I have to do that.
So I think that's a good place to talk about.
We have slip leads on the list and you're saying for slip
leading you would pick a leatherleash.
I'm assuming that the way we have slip leads on here, we mean

(26:05):
the little nylon slip leads thatare, I don't know, they're
probably in the four foot range like Nelson's talking about.
Maybe they're 6. Feet, I don't think there's both
well, but there's always for theleather one, it depends on the
use because but then there's also slip leads that are made
for walking and training that are usually around fabric

(26:27):
material. I don't know what they are like.
They're like a stiff round kind of ropey type material that you
know are made to be, I guess a collar unleash in one basically,
you know, you just being a slip lead.
So, you know, I'd say three different use cases there.
Do we want to tackle that now? I think you should, yeah.
Nelson, do you want to? Do you want me to?

(26:49):
I mean, I could talk about in certain instances like moving
dogs or if I'm just taking one to run it out to go to the
bathroom or something like that,or I'm training inside the
house. They're awesome.
I really I use them all the time.
Which one are you talking about?Here the slip lead leash that

(27:10):
just looks like a rope and then has a piece of leather that you
can kind of lock in. How?
OK, so you're talking about the nice style that's made to be
like a leash in collar in one basically?
Yeah, and I think what are they call it like an English, like an
English slip lead or something like that.
I don't remember exactly, but yeah, the nicer ones and those
are awesome. I like them a lot.

(27:31):
We use slip leads all the time in training, but more often than
not, I have a regular leather leash that I just fold into a
slip lead. But as far as the actual leash
itself goes, I mean, they're, they're great.
I wouldn't do full training sessions on them or I wouldn't
train a new dog on them. I don't think they're great for
that kind of stuff. Or like I wouldn't work on

(27:53):
reactivity with them, but they're great for doing kind of
simple tasks super fast. It's like having some Crocs at
the door or something like that,right?
Just something that you can grabreal quick and go.
I don't own a pair of Crocs. Good for you buddy.
I I hate the way that they look,but they're so convenient.
I think Covey's a croc guy, I bet.

(28:14):
He's got so I'm not a croc guy. I'll tell you what, I tried on a
pair once and they just didn't do it for me.
I don't know, just I couldn't see myself wearing them and I've
got flip flops that I wear. I don't wear them out in public
and I've never bought my own pair of Crocs, but they are
convenient. I think just the way they came

(28:36):
to popularity scares me off of them.
Sure. Do I mean Nelson?
Do you know how they came to popularity?
All the boat people, right? No, it was the movie Idiocracy.
Oh no. Like the dudes wait.
Crocs are that old. The dude saw those shoes and
he's like, these are the dumbestshoes ever.
Like I'm going to put this that the people in this movie are

(28:58):
wearing these shoes and like, that's where they that's where
they caught on. I haven't seen that movie in
years. I love that movie.
It's hilarious, but I don't remember that being part of it.
Yeah, they're wearing Crocs. At least that's my knowledge.
I could be completely wrong and if I am, put it in the comments,
but that's my knowledge of whereCrocs came from or at least
became popular. I should.

(29:18):
Sure, sure. Back to slip leashes, the other
style of slip leash would be like the the veterinary slip
lead. You know, most people have seen
these and gotten one from a vet's office.
Daycares and kennels use them a lot.
They're extremely cheap. They're very easy, like it gets
dirty. You can wash them or you could

(29:39):
just throw it away. And it's really, they're very
thin. I don't know how thick they are,
but they're very thin. They're like AI don't know what
they're like some sort of material nylon or something, I
don't know. And they have a metal loop on
one side. They're very easy to make a slip
lead. So I use those the most like if
I have a like a behavior case I'm working on.

(30:01):
So picture a dog who gets aggressive or real feisty
randomly throughout the day and you need a way to gain control
in many different places. I'll have the resource guarding
as a common one. I'll have the client get like go
on Amazon, get like a 20 pack ora 12 pack and we talk about

(30:21):
places to leave them. I want one right by the front
door. I want one on the coffee table
because you've told me that he whatever, you know, tries to
bite you and he gets this. Definitely want one in the
kitchen. Want one in the bedroom on each
of your night stands for those times he jumps in the bed and
becomes aggressive when you try to move them or whatever.
So we put them everywhere because they're so cheap and now
you've got that to gain control.To me, they're never a

(30:44):
replacement for a normal leash. It's that the dog jumps in the
bed and is now aggressive. When you go to move them, what
are you going to do? Go downstairs, go to the laundry
room, find your leash, come backup and get them like the the
moments. Now you know, who knows what's
going to happen at that point. So I use them the most for that.
I always keep some in my truck just because you never know when
you're going to need them. They're really handy.

(31:06):
I would recommend any trainer who doesn't carry them to carry
them. You'll be shocked how often
having some cheap slip leads like that are going to make a
difference and you can leave onewith a client if you need to.
You can use it for that scenario, like Nelson said,
where it's going to get nasty. You're looking at the client's
yard. They haven't picked up dog crap
in three months and it's spraying.
Everything's nasty. You don't want your leash of any

(31:28):
sort dragging through that. Maybe you put a slip lead on
them. You know, you can just attach it
to a collar, doesn't have to be hooked on like a slip lead.
I attach them to collars all thetime.
So you know, a lot of advantagesthere for sure.
Hi everyone. This is Jason Ferguson and I'm
the President of the International Association of
Canine Professionals. Our organization is focused on

(31:49):
three pillars, education, certification and legislation.
What that means is we help educate our members to ensure
that they're the best dog trainers they can be.
We also offer certifications so that clients know that the
trainers are true professional. Our legislative efforts are
focused on ensuring that trainers have the freedom to
choose the tools and techniques that work best for the dogs and

(32:10):
clients that they work with. Join the ICP today for yourself
and to protect the industry. Our friends on the Balanced Dog
Training Podcast support the ICPand we hope you will as well.
I didn't think about just attaching it to a collar.
I've never done that, ever. I've done that a lot and it's I
mean, especially dirty where I don't want my leather niche

(32:34):
dragon through and you know, other dogs are going to pee on
it when there's you're in a household that has four or five
dogs and it's just not not worthit.
Right exactly. Then what I would say to
trainers listening is if you're slip leading dogs, like they're
under the bed and you're slip leading them and they're
aggressive, or they're in the crate and you're slip leading
them, it works wonders to use the newest, stiffest, stiffest,

(32:57):
fairly light leash you have. Whatever is going to be the
stiffest and we'll reach out thelongest without collapsing in on
itself. For me, that's rarely a puppy
lead. They just tend to bend even if
they're stiff. But if your puppy leads are
different, that's great. I'll usually use a brand new 6
foot leather leash and you can usually get those multiple feet
from your body very stiff and you can gently set it over the

(33:19):
dog's head and then gently slip lead versus you have a nice, you
know, broken and leather leash. You have to toss it to them.
And for a lot of dogs, that tossis going to set them off and
they're going to snap at it and it's going to make everything
harder versus something that youcan just kind of gently slide
over their head. We need to start talking about
like the the dog catcher loops. The I don't, I can't remember

(33:42):
what they're called, but it's like a metal loop.
The metal little is that what it's called a loophole?
Well, there you go. Maybe that needs to be on our
list of different leashes. Can you imagine just like
healing your dog out there with one of those things, but slip
loading would be so easy with that thing.
It would help a lot. So one of the few times I'll use

(34:04):
a puppy lead or a cloth one to slip lead an aggressive dog
purposely would be if I'm feeding it from the top of the
crate. And I'm thinking in my mind
specifically of a time I got called for an emergency house
call. It was a pit mix that the people
had just gotten couldn't get outof the crate.
It'd been in there for like, I don't know, 1224 hours, some
long period of time and the dog was going insane.

(34:24):
He'd hurt the guy, I think it was, this was years ago, but
hurt the guy really bad. Got put in the crate and they
like they couldn't get it out. And the police, the only option
was like basically like, we'd, you know, shoot it if we had to,
like if it got out, but we're not going to come and help you
get this dog out of a crate. So I went there and the dog was
just absolutely nuts. So I slip leaded it through the

(34:44):
top of the crate, through the bars.
So like, you know, put the cheapslip lead down, Finally got it
over the dog and then carefully,you know, worked it through the
bars. I got my hands, you know,
gently, of course, and carefullythrough the bars until I could
get that to the front and then was able to get the dog to get
it through the door slowly and then open the door and take the
dog out on that. So in a, you know, it would have

(35:06):
been a lot harder with a leatherleash to get it through the,
the, you know, the crate in the way I did.
So very useful to have on, you know, have on you just in case.
I have done that before. Well, that works out very well.
Tool for every job. Exactly.
All right, Nelson, what's next? I just looked at the list.
Loss of belt clip leash. Yeah, that's the next one.

(35:29):
That's the Nelson 1. I feel like he's always talking
about how he wants to attach dogs to his waist.
Always, absolutely always. I'm assuming that's like the
jogging one, right? OK.
Yogging the J is silent. Yogging, yogging.
I can see that like in Spanish where it turns into an H Yeah, I

(35:52):
don't have a lot of experience very clearly.
I don't have my running body on very often, but they're they
seem very inconvenient. The few times that I've seen
people using them and walking them, I see kind of like dog
walkers tend to prefer them because they might have multiple
dogs jutting out of their waist.But, but I don't know the,

(36:15):
there's just something about theover the shoulder where I feel
like I still maintain a lot of alot of control.
And even if the dog was pulling really hard, I can just slip the
thing over my head really quickly and just, you know, go
hands on as opposed to having a leash that's attached to my
waist. You know, if that thing goes, I
feel like my body's going instead of me being ready If I

(36:37):
wasn't already aware of whateverit was, right?
If it was a rabbit that ran pastand I didn't see it beforehand,
you're going to be playing catchup pretty quickly there and the
dog could take you down South. Would it be something I would
use typically? And when you're not using it
around your waist, it's like 8 feet long and then there's like

(37:00):
a ton of different attachment points and everything, so the
metal is everywhere. I don't know, I don't like them.
I kind of despise them. I just realized right now right
here with all of these guys. I think despise is a strong
word, but I would always if somebody wants something
similar, I would always recommend the over the shoulder.
Over that just seems so much better so.

(37:25):
I don't have much to add other than I've never used 1 and I
have no interest in using one. I would only but if your dog is
chill and is really good it simply doesn't matter what you
use in in most cases. So if someone hears this and is
like my dog is amazing on it makes her life so much better.
If your dog is pretty chill and never pulls and just it works,

(37:47):
more power to you. But we're called in for a lot of
wild dogs behavior cases. And when I see someone with a
reactive dog and one of those and they're jogging, they have
to like grab it real quickly. And I just picture them, like
you said, Nelson getting yanked by their like middle of their
body. I don't know, it just seems
crazy. But if it works and your dog's
chill, more power to you and. That is something that, I mean,

(38:11):
you said that early on to me joining the team, which is, you
know, if your dog walks well or behaves, it doesn't matter what
you use. And furthering to the point
where off leash heel, you know, tends to make sense for dogs
that are really good. Yeah.
But attaching it to my waist kind of seems, I don't know,

(38:33):
annoying. All right, let's move on.
What's for next? That's a great segue into the
next one, which is A2 dog splitter.
And I say it's good segue for two reasons. 1, Nelson had
already talked about a dog Walker using the belt clip and
then 2, I feel like there's no real need for A2 dog splitter,

(38:53):
and I think you guys might arguewith me about that, but I just
don't. I don't see it.
A lot of times when you're training two dogs, it's better
to have an individual leash on each one so that you can use the
leash that you need to at a certain time.
And when you add the two dog splitter in, then the control is
only the same for both dogs, right?
So I like the variability of being able to switch off

(39:14):
whichever dog I need to be working with by having two
leashes and then once they're good, then I just continue on
with two leashes, right? There's no reason to make a
change. Now, if you started and both
dogs were great from the very beginning and walked perfectly
for you and you never had any issues, then maybe A2 dog
splitter might make sense. But to me, I just, I don't get

(39:34):
the product. I don't see why people like it,
and maybe I'm wrong about that, I don't know.
Kelly, how do you feel about him?
Well for me personally, I guess similar to Vloss, they don't
solve any problems for me because I don't mind having two
leashes in my hand. So the idea of getting rid of 1
leash is not like oh this is amazing.
Now I just have one leash here 2and one.

(39:55):
It just feels the same. So they solve nothing and they
just create potential issues. Like Vloss said, they you, you
know you can also have one dog correct the other.
So even if your dogs are really good, how many times have you
been on a walk, you're walking and out of nowhere your dog
stops to have a bowel movement or to pee.
And if you're walking quickly, well, now imagine the other dog

(40:18):
who didn't stop gets like yankedby his neck or whatever is it
it's attached to out of nowhere.That's kind of weird.
And then now he's like stuck right next to the other dog
while that dog's going to the bathroom.
And like, you can't even like, how long is the splitter?
Usually they're not very long. They can.
Be they can be long, they can bedecently like 2 feet long or

(40:39):
something like that. And two feet I would like better
for sure. But then when it gets twisted
up, now you have to untwist the dogs versus untwisting the
leashes because it's you know, there's no other way to do it
unless you unclip at the splitter.
So to me, if a client was happy and they said I walk my dogs on
it every day, it's great. I love it fine, more power to
you. But I would never I these.
I have used just with clients and I would never choose it.

(41:04):
So I've used them, I always try and get clients to get the
longest ones that they can find so that you can individually
correct each individual dog. I mean it is nice not to have
two leashes, even 2 leather leashes that can become
cumbersome for sure. But it wouldn't be my go to.

(41:26):
So I would much rather like, let's say with my own personal
dogs, you know, dogs that I'm walking all the time, I would
much rather throw 2 over the shoulders.
The gentleman in the poodle shirt has a question, it looked
like. So you said that when you
recommend them to clients or when clients are getting them,

(41:46):
you recommend the longest ones. When are those?
When is that happening? Like they really want it or you
told them they should get it. They really want it and it's
usually because their dogs are like I've.
I've never used one to train a dog.
Usually the dogs are good and then you know, they the client

(42:07):
will kind of move over to them and they'll ask me about them.
But I do I'll give you the pointthat yes, having two leashes is
better because you can go individual dog and leash at any
moment. But I mean that that is annoying
to to some people. I've had a lot of clients that
are annoyed by having to deal with too many leashes in both

(42:30):
hands, and sure, then a splitterwith well trained dogs could
work out just fine. I think this is a great spot to
pause from talking about all thedifferent types of leashes and
have our 62nd question, which today we're once again just
going to ask Covey because Nelson did the last one and he

(42:51):
did it with an accent. We're going to ask Covey a 16
question. Throw out for everyone
listening. We're not getting rid of the
segment where we call the trainers.
We've had some technical reasonswe can't do that lately.
We're going back to that. We'd much rather be calling
trainer. So this has not been that thing
is not ended. It's coming back with a
vengeance very soon. A vengeance.

(43:12):
A vengeance. Vengeance.
Crazy. Maybe we'll have to do a whole
episode of calling trainers constantly.
Just that would be hilarious. Cover.
You're going to have to do an accent though, for us, so it
seems like it's somebody else. Yeah.
Are you ready? Yeah, I'm going to.
Surprise us. Surprise us with the accent.
Don't tell us. It's going to be an American
accent. At least New York, all right.

(43:36):
Are you ready? I got 60 seconds on the clock.
Yeah, I'm ready. You have a new client, husband
and wife with an 8 month old chiweenie that pulls on leash.
The husband loves his retractable leash and the wife
thinks it's dumb. What advice would you give them
about leash choice while not causing World War 3?

(43:58):
I would advise them that long term they can use any leash that
they enjoy. So long term when a dog is
trained, I could care less what leash they have the dog on.
I would stress that for training, using the retractable
poses dangers to their dog, to them, to other people you
interact with, and it's going tomake training harder.
And I would explain the reasons.If the dog runs and gets the

(44:21):
retractable wrapped around his leg and pulls that thin,
especially the thin retractableslike the little round cord can
give a nasty rope burn, could really injure the dog.
If he's saying hi to a kid and runs around the kids leg or
jumps over their hand or whatever, a person could get
injured. Then when it gets tight and they
pull their arm away, the dog gets pulled with it.
The dog could then end up bitingthe person because they're

(44:42):
nervous and scared, could get wrapped around your arm, your
leg. There's just so many dangers.
Let's go back to that once the dog is fully trained and you
look like you're distracting me,am I out of time?
You've been doing that for like 10 seconds.
Yeah, you just ran out. Trying to.
Get in your head. You did.
Mission accomplished. It worked.

(45:03):
So, Voss. Would have been great at
basketball or a basketball. Great answer.
I think a really good segue intoour next leash, which is the
retractable leash. So is there a place for
retractable leashes? And by the way, good job not
causing a fight between the two.Which thank you.
I think a lot of trainers need more credit for their ability to

(45:26):
bridge the gap between couples that are fighting with each
other. Are we just going to skip over
the fact that Covey thinks a 5 LB dog is going to cut someone's
finger off? I didn't say finger cut off.
And you were like, oh man, it's going to wrap around your ankle
and then you're going to go downbecause.
No, this is such such an exaggeration.

(45:48):
And 1st off, this chiweenie could be like 7 or 8 lbs which
now we're getting. I'll give you the 2 lbs adds a
lot, OK? So never said anyone's going to
go to hell and fall, but that wraps around a kids arm or leg.
The kid screams, the kid Yanks their dog back, their leg back,
and you're telling me that Chiweenie's not going to then
attack the kid? You know what it is?

(46:09):
It's a chewy. That would be my fear for sure,
right? The fear would be after now as
far as like, obviously I agree with everything that you said,
because a lot of times it's not a chiweenie, right?
I mean, we're seeing people. There's a person in my
neighborhood walks a full grown male Rottweiler around with a
prong collar and A and a retractable leash.

(46:31):
And I'm like, it just seems so backwards.
But all right, whatever works. That can cut a finger off for
sure. Yeah.
What what I would say is I, I have no interest in using a
retractable leash. I don't own one.
I have no interest in owning one.
I, I can see a time that I, I could, I could see using it in

(46:52):
certain scenarios. So most my dogs spend a lot of
time off leash and they're really good and they get to run
and playoff leash. But if I lived in like, I don't
know, in a suburb, there is no parks close or town, whatever.
You're walking your dog, your dog's pretty chill.
They listen well. You want the ability to be able
to get them 15 feet away to run and smell and then you call them

(47:14):
back. You don't want a long line
because you don't want to drop it and it's the long line's too
long. I can see the appeal of a flexi
lead or practical leash in certain scenarios.
It doesn't work for my lifestyleand most of the people I see
walking dogs out on the dogs nottrained, which makes me
absolutely hate the tool. But I just to play devil's

(47:36):
advocate, I can think of scenarios where I could see it
making someone's life better, but the it's predicated on the
dog has to be really well trained before you use it.
And what I find with my clients is once the dog's really well
trained they don't want it anymore.
It doesn't add value to them. But I recognize I'm pretty
lucky. There's lots of places I can
take my dogs off leash where I don't get hassled by police for

(47:58):
having them off leash. That was like you frowned upon
and people are screaming at you and you could get in trouble
constantly. You know, maybe it would make
sense. Definitely.
I really like what you said. About how the untrained dogs put
that sour taste in your mouth about the tool, because that's,
that's absolutely something I see all the time, not only about

(48:20):
that tool, but yeah, people hatelittle dogs because the way that
people treat those little dogs and what they end up being as
opposed to just what would happen if you treated it like,
like a normal dog. So that's definitely a thing.
I like them. If I lived in an apartment, I
would absolutely own one if I could just, you know, winter

(48:42):
day, open the slide door and letmy dog go 15 feet away to go to
the bathroom and then get them right back in there.
Fantastic for that kind of stuff.
So a first floor apartment? Only a. 1st floor, yeah,
probably not gonna go. Good.
You know, I don't think it's long enough to make it back to
the floor on that second floor. Dude if you had a Chiwini you

(49:02):
could lower him down in. A harness like a little military
dog and then let him do his thing and pull him back up.
That would be awesome. Actually, that'd be hilarious.
But again, it's, it's it always tends to be a situation like
that. I don't like to, I've had
clients do it, but I don't like to actually use the flexi leads
for recall or anything like thatbecause, again, things get a

(49:26):
little jumbled in in my trainingon how to correct them.
But that's, you know, kind of a personal thing there.
But yeah, in an apartment where you want your dog to actually
get some distance away from you,Flexi leads work out great for
sure. Last thing I'll throw out and.
They're retractable is, you know, I put it, what puts a bad

(49:47):
taste in our mouth is how many dog fights and attacks happen
because the owners don't have control.
And I just put something on social media last week, I think
where my nephew got attacked by a dog and I think the title was
like, he got attacked because a dumbass used a retractable
leash. And that's exactly what it was.
They had their dog on a retractable leash.
Dog wasn't super friendly. He's like 9.

(50:09):
He's riding his bike down the road and the dog charges and
attacks him. And he's lucky he did.
I mean, he got bit up and like had to get, you know, medical
treatment, but nothing bad compared to like what it could
have been. But this is so easily
preventable. Don't put your dog on our
tractable leash. If he's bad.
Problem solved. So as trainers, I think
sometimes clients don't get why some trainers are so up in arms

(50:32):
and defensive and like so agitated about retractable
leashes. But you see enough kids get
attacked, you see enough dog fights happen.
Pretty soon you just start to hate the tool because you don't
see it being used in the right way really at all.
And you see it being used in thewrong way every day for sure.
Absolutely. The dog fights is a huge.
One at PetSmart, dogs were getting into fights left and

(50:54):
right because of them in different aisles.
Right, like you're. At the.
End of 1 aisle looking at something and your dog just
turns the corner to go start crap with another dog.
So yeah. I mean, they're very, very
annoying for sure. All right, well, let's move on.
What's what's? Next, the next one is I don't
think these are popular. Anymore, and maybe I'm wrong

(51:16):
about that, but the next one on the list is chain leashes, which
I used to remember people recommending these a lot.
If you had a dog that would bitethe leash, they'd be like get a
chain leash, you ain't going to bite through that.
But I don't really see these anymore.
Do you guys still see these? I'm working with a dog, right?
Now where the guy uses a chain leash.

(51:38):
So can I ask a question? Nelson go for it is.
The dog a Rottweiler or a pit? It's actually a German Shepherd.
What? I was going to say rat for sure.
German Shepherd and. All black German shepherd.
So yeah, I walked in and like, oh man, this is it's going to be
delightful. I feel like you left off 1 breed

(52:00):
Doberman. Those are the three Dobermans
could be for three options. Dobermans, though, have got.
Different owners now. Dobermans, I feel like have
become trendy with, like they'relike a hipster dog.
Yeah, a hipster is that? For sure and.
Yeah, but OK, so let's keep Chainley short.
Nelson, what are your thoughts? I'm assuming we have the same

(52:21):
thoughts here. Probably.
I hate them. They suck.
They're trash. Get rid of them right away.
Horrible in the hand. They're uncomfortable.
If your dog's biting it, he's going to break his teeth.
So you got you got to fix that problem.
I if you're not watching them horrible, right?
And if he's going to. Chew through the leather, leash
that. Means you're not watching them.
So if he's doing that to the metal, that's that's a problem.

(52:45):
And do you guys still? See these quite a bit, I know.
Nelson, you said you have one right now, but I like, I just
don't see them much anymore. I see them sold, or rather.
I should say I see them for saleall the time before this current
dog. I mean, it's, it's been probably
a year or two before I've had a client, you know, pull one out.
But I, you know, I want to say every every couple of years

(53:07):
someone's got one. It's always a dude and in my
experience. It's always a power breed, but
it's almost always rots and pitsfor sure.
Absolutely. And then you're trying like
especially with like a wide. A leather spiked collar and
they're trying to walk the dog. The dog's choking itself and
you're like trying to hold this dog with the chain in your hand.
It's horrible. It is the worst, the most.

(53:31):
Uncomfortable leash ever and thedog's on like a. 3 inch wide
leather collar. Yeah, goes hand in hand.
All right, next one bungee. Leashes.
I've got some thoughts on this. Nelson, do you have thoughts on
it? I do have thoughts on this.

(53:52):
Velos, how about you take this? One, though, I don't think
you've started on any of these leashes.
Yeah, I don't know. I feel like I started at least
something. So I can't think of a ton.
Of applications where. I would like a bungee leash.
I don't hate them because they're almost they're like
similar to a six foot leash in alot of ways, right?

(54:12):
It's just like a standard leash until the dog really goes to
pull. So to me, I don't think that
they're bad per SE. I don't like dislike them when I
see them, but I also don't see much of a reason for them and I
would probably I wouldn't buy one or recommend one to someone.
The only the only place I see where they could really make

(54:33):
sense of it is if you have a breed that you really want to
pull on leash and that's going to be like one of its jobs to
do. And then that by having the
bungee leash, the pulling will be reduced on both your hand,
but then also on the dog's collar because the bungee will
be as absorbing some of that while it's pulling.
But for me personally, those situations are sort of few and

(54:55):
far between. Yeah, I.
I like that and that's. Definitely the only use case.
I would probably go as far as tosay I hate them.
So a little, little further thankind of where you were.
And one of the biggest reasons is that is a leash that
simultaneously breeds complacency and inhibits

(55:19):
training. It's literally the like
kryptonite to our style of dog training.
And one of the big reasons is because if you go to give a tug,
it takes most of the energy out before it gets back to the
collar. And that's super annoying.
So now you have to know where tograb the where to grab the
leash. Or you know, like again, there's

(55:40):
there's a couple of different styles.
So you know, where to grab the leash starts to be a much bigger
role in giving a quick tug. I've I've had this worry.
I've never actually seen any, any real evidence or anything.
But like stepping on the leash while the dog is running away.
I feel like could, could just give a little bit extra

(56:01):
distance. But also maybe that's what the
bungee is for. So it's actually safer.
I don't know. But that that always kind of
rings in my head when I'm when I'm thinking about using a
bungee leash. But yeah, I hate them because
they make my job much harder. I I think the key Nelson.
Is what you said about our. Style of training so I don't

(56:22):
ever use bungee leashes. I have no interest in them just
to give you the only time I could see myself use.
I've never needed it, but I could understand someone saying
this if you have a dog and I've heard people say if a dogs
really spooked by their collar so they pull a little bit too
hard, they get a correction, they freak out.
The bungee is going to soften that.

(56:42):
But what I would say is I don't know, I guess acclimate to the
collar more or switch collars to1.
They're not so reactive on If a trainer said no, I'd rather use
this collar and have them be less reactive.
If that works for you, fine. I've just it's never been for
me, but I could I could get behind that if a trainer said
that. But the big caveat that you
said, Nelson, our style of training, if you're trying to

(57:03):
build 5 and frustration in a dogon leash.
And so you have the dog on leashand you're showing them a tug or
a flirt pole or something and you're restraining and holding
the dog back and they're lunginghard after it.
If you have it attached to a collar, it's going to be way
safer on that flexi so that you know, they have some, you know,
some stretch when they're doing that and then you let them go

(57:25):
and or whatever you're going to do when you're ready.
That's just not something we do.And if I'm using like AI don't
know some sort of toy, like a flirt pole type toy, I'm not
purposely building drive. If the dog doesn't have it, I'm
probably not using that toy in general.
Except it's just I'm never trying to build driving a dog.
It's not what we do, So no. No value for what I do.

(57:48):
But I can see the value for a couple scenarios.
Yeah, and I think that's a good point, right?
You know, building. That drive the bungee helps.
It's very similar to what Bloss was talking about, which is, you
know, in my mind what I think about her like bomb sniffing
dogs or cadaver dogs, that kind of stuff where a dog is kind of
pulling the the trainer along. You know, I can see where the

(58:10):
bungee would help out quite a bit there, all right.
So I think that covers all the actual leashes.
We have two sort of subcategories that we're going
to get into. If you think we missed a leash,
make sure to drop us a comment, let us know, and we'll make sure
to talk about it in another unrelated podcast, even though

(58:30):
that's going to be weird and I don't know why we would do it,
but we'll do it. We'll just it's like a perfect
intro to a food aggression. Episode We'll talk about It's a
Leash for a minute, so subcategory number. 1.
Is short tabs. Anyone want to talk about short
tabs? Yeah.

(58:51):
I think they're awesome. I.
Really like the the actual shortshort tabs though.
I've noticed that when people trying to get short tabs off of
Amazon, it's it's never that. It's like a traffic leash.
It's like 1 foot or two feet long and those seem really,
really annoying. More annoying than helpful,
especially because the dog has, I don't know, kind of easy

(59:13):
access to chew off most of it anyways, but I love having a a
little pull tab or a short tab just because it makes off least
training so much easier. Particularly, you know, when
we're talking about good good manners inside the house is a
really, really beneficial one touse a short tab where you can

(59:35):
just kind of grab the dog reallyquick and either correct or heal
to calm it down and just using alittle short tab.
So they're awesome. So for anyone struggling to
picture what. Nelson's talking about it's
basically just a clip like you would have on your leash and
then a short piece of some type of material.
So in Nelson's example, he says he likes the really short ones.

(59:57):
So they have ones where you havea clip and it's like 2 feet long
and then they have ones that it's a clip and it's like, I
don't know, 4 to 6 inches long. And Nelson's saying he.
Likes shorter. Better than longer?
Definitely 100. Percent agreed and I'll just.
Add any. Trainer that doesn't use them,
you need to evaluate them and work them into your training.

(01:00:21):
I can't imagine not using them. Insanely helpful for clients and
it's great for off Lee Shield tostart working on that.
But it's also great just the dogs in the house and the owner
needs to do whatever you're working on place you're working
on come, you're working on not jumping, you're working on door
whatever. To have something you can just
grab and tell the dog he'll or what whatever it is you want to

(01:00:43):
tell them is really nice. And dragging a full leash can be
dangerous. It's annoying.
They get caught on table legs. Other dogs grab it.
The short leash makes such a difference the other dogs
grabbing. Is classic for.
Sure. And you see, like the puppy is
like dragging. The other dog and the adult dogs
like walking behind. It's crazy, so any thoughts?

(01:01:07):
On materials for. Them so you know, we offer two
flavors through our trainers which one would be leather and
then the other one would be it'smetal.
It's like a a wire cable tie. Is that the best way to describe
that fuel cable wrapped in plastic?
Yep, so wrapped in plastic. What are your?

(01:01:29):
Thoughts on the two different ones?
Is there another option that I'mnot thinking of?
We know Nelson's going to say bio thing.
For sure. Absolute power and he's gonna
have some weird. Length.
He's like, I know. A lot of people use a six inch,
but the five and a half it's butthe 7.2 inch is just man.
Oh. Now you're going longer, you're
going longer. For this one, if they make a

(01:01:51):
biothane 1I. Would grab.
One for sure, but actually I like them both.
I like the leather ones and thenI like the kind of chew proof
ones, right? So that's based on the dog.
If it's an older, really calm dog, the leather 1 is going to
break in super nice and feel great in your hand.
The metal 1 is not great feelingnecessarily, but it really

(01:02:13):
prevents your dogs from being able to chew through it and then
preventing you from using it. So I I personally I like them
both. I think you just gave the the 2.
Most common use cases. So if you have a younger dog
who's getting in trouble and you're using it around the
house, I think the little metal 1 is probably better.
If you're working on off leash heel, then the leather one's

(01:02:34):
going to be the nicer choice. So you know, based off the use
case, that would be how I'd sortof determined between the two
materials. Does anyone still recommend to
clients to just cut off an old leash?
Yeah, I throw it out there. I throw it out there.
The thing is leashes. Have gotten so expensive that
most of their leashes cost more than our short tabs do.

(01:02:56):
So then it used to be like I remember I would say it because
I'm like, you know, get a leash or if you have one like a $3
leash just cut it. But those don't exist anymore
now. And if you actually buy?
A short tab places they're I mean, they're up there.
I don't even think we have a very expensive price on them
anymore, but I've seen some go for like 2530 bucks and I'm

(01:03:20):
like, I would just buy a leash at that point and that I think
you just for. All of our products that we
sell, we're always doing our best to try and get the price as
low as we can for our clients. We want them to be tools that
people can use as opposed to like when you're buying it in
the store, their goal is to sellyou that and make a profit off
that's our product. So, you know, we're always
trying to find the the best product at the best price and

(01:03:44):
then sort of pass those savings on to our customers.
And we should have said at the start, this is not a.
Sales pitch because we don't actually we don't ship product.
So if you reached out to us and said I want to buy one of these
things, you know, unless you're a current client, it's not even
really an option. So maybe we should have opened
with that. We like one to two leashes.
Per year in like very special circumstances.

(01:04:07):
Yeah, somebody's like, I worked with you 3 years ago and I moved
to Alaska. Could you show me one of those
leashes? Sometimes it's about it.
We're over an hour so. We do.
We have one. More thing.
Plus you said one more thing. We got long lines and then
there's another. Subtopic about this maybe, but I
don't think it would take long if we even want to get to it.

(01:04:30):
So we've talked about long linesin another.
Episode. So I think we could just give a
short answer here. Nelson, you want to or do you
want me to go for it? So long line I can't.
Imagine not. Having a long line as part of
your training routine, just you need one.
It's, I mean, I guess I'm if youhave a small yard and you're
never going to do off leash, butI think that's crazy.

(01:04:50):
Every dog should be trained off leash and a long line is needed
for safety. Even if you're planning on using
an E collar or even, I guess youcould say, especially if you're
going to be E collar training, you need a long line.
We sell ones that we really likethat are washable, that are easy
in the hand, that are nice enough length that aren't too
heavy. Some get really heavy.

(01:05:10):
So there's just a lot of styles to look for you if it's.
And then I guess just to throw this out there with length, it
needs to be the example or the distance I give is twice as long
as the distance you're going to let your dog get from you.
And that means it's a very long line because if you're in an
unfenced area and your yard, it doesn't really matter.
But if you're in a big open field, think about it.

(01:05:31):
Look, put go measure out 30 feetand you say, OK, I'm going to
let my dog 30 feet away. Well, if your long line is 30
feet and your dog gets 6, 6 inches out of your distance and
they're faster than you, then you can never catch them because
you're just chasing the end of the line, right?
So if they're 30 feet from you, you need a 50 or 60 foot line
and 30 feet is not very far. So very often if you're doing

(01:05:53):
much real recall work in a non fenced area, you need 100 foot
line to let your dog get any reasonable distance from you.
So really important to think about that.
Absolutely. And then I would just.
Say make sure it's thick. Enough that it's not going to
break. And then with a small dog, I
just had this conversation with one of our trainers this
morning, actually with a toy foxterrier that is, you know, wild

(01:06:18):
and excitable. But the long line ends up being
really heavy for the dog, right?So we talked about maybe you
need to go to Home Depot and or have the client go and buy the
thinnest rope that seems strong enough paracord.
OK. Is that it for long lines?
I think so. That's all I've got that I feel.

(01:06:38):
Like I need to get out there right now.
So the last thing that I have onour list of stuff.
To talk about is when to replacea leash and the questions bred
more from seeing some trainers using some pretty jacked leashes
over the years. What are you guys thoughts?
Like when? When should you be saying?
You know what, this leash just shouldn't be used anymore.

(01:07:05):
On a nylon. Leash I would say if it's got.
Like a cut that's. Fraying off, I would probably
already start looking to replacethat.
It doesn't take very, very much for a nylon, but on a leather
leash, I'd say what like quarterinch to 1/2 inch long cut, you
know, before I'm ready to to, you know, go buy another one.

(01:07:30):
See, I find that I feel like if there's a.
Cut on the side of a leather leash, much like what you said
about nylon. I would just replace it at that
point because to me once it started to tear those fibers
it's easy to go all the way across.
And I agree that the leather leash would probably be stronger
and last longer in the situation.

(01:07:50):
But to me, anytime that you start seeing that type of damage
on the edge, it's probably time to get a new one if I'm going to
have. Like a training.
Dog, I would agree with you completely if it was my own dog
and I'm not training my own dog.I don't know, I think quarter
inch would probably be fine because I'm not actually
expecting my dogs to pull very much.

(01:08:12):
And you know, like again, our own personal dogs are well
trained anyway, so it's not really going to play a role
there. The framework I would give
first. As it depends on the dog.
Which is what you were just saying, Nelson, if your dog is a
risk of mulling another animal or person, you have to be a lot
more worried. If your dog is a flight risk,
they're very nervous and they'llrun away and you'll never see

(01:08:34):
him again. You got to be a lot more worried
if your dog is super chill and if it were to break you don't
worry about it as much. Then, you know, maybe that
little tear you don't stress outabout as much.
I've never seen a leather leash tear.
I've seen them get chewed through, but I've never seen
like a little tear on one. All of a sudden it rips.
Doesn't mean I wouldn't look at it and worry about it, but I've

(01:08:54):
seen that with cloth. There's a little tear and then
all of a sudden it becomes a bigone really quickly.
But I would tell people start atthe at the clip, make sure the
clip looks good. If the clip is sticking and not
like the little, I don't know what you call it, like the
little trigger part that opens and shots.
If that's sticking open, that's a big deal.
If it's popping off unexpectedly, that's a big deal.

(01:09:16):
I'd get rid of it. If it has any stitching on it
and the stitching is looking suspect whatsoever, I'd replace
it. I, I don't use leashes with
stitching because I don't trust it and I don't want to have to
rely on some random piece of stitching keeping my dog or my
client's dog safe. But if you had that, I would
watch it really closely and thenlike Nelson said, tears for

(01:09:37):
sure. And it's pretty.
Cheap, right? Even if you don't.
Want to buy a new one? It's a lot better than something
terrible happening to your dog. Absolutely.
But no, I'll just. Go back to my leash.
I've got. That I just tossed over my
shoulder a few minutes ago had it's going on 20 years.
I mean, like this next spring will be 20 years.
It's been through a lot. It's been bit more times than I

(01:09:59):
can count. And that leash is in excellent
shape. So if you get a good leash, it's
going to last a really long time.
That's raising our point. So I think we did it.
I think we. That's the most comprehensive
leash episode probably in existence anywhere, ever.
And if again, if we missed any leashes, if we missed any topics
that we should have been talkingabout with leashes, make sure to

(01:10:22):
comment and let us know it and we'll make sure to talk about it
in an unrelated episode. Yep.
And I'm just going to say I think we.
Should have notes and like plansfor our episodes for now on.
You know, Nelson and I have beensaying that forever and Vloss,
you're always like anti plans. You want us to just show up and
wing it. But I like having a framework.

(01:10:42):
It really it just makes things so smooth.
Does it? All right.
Thanks for listening everybody.