Long Leads

Your dog should experience THEIR walk THEIR way! Now, I understand that it is not realistic for every person to let their dog off lead for a free run. That’s where long leads come into play. I absolutely adore this training tool and have kept it in practice for my own dogs. Why? Tootsie and Pebbles are family dogs… really meaning Mum and Dad have the final say in what goes down. They fear, like most people do, that despite training there may be a scenario where the dogs bolt (you can use your imagination to come up with many hypothetical situations). Long leads have been the saving grace to calm my parents nerves whilst still providing Toots and Pebbs their basic needs.

There are a variety of long leads on the market. I believe the best length for any breed is a 5-metre-long lead. This will provide the dog with the opportunity to explore their surroundings whilst not getting to far away from you that in case of an emergency you cannot reach them. It is not best practice to have your dog further than 5 meters away from you. Why? Let’s pose a hypothetical: If your dog is further than 5 metres from you and another dog rounded the corner, came out of nowhere and were to attack your dog, the further away you were means the longer it would take you to get to your dog, and in turn, the more injured they may get.

That’s just one of many reasons as to why your dog should not be further than 5 metres away from you. Other reasons include: - Not being able to decipher where you are. - Them getting lost. - Dognapping (someone stealing your dog). - If using a lead longer than 5 metres, it can be hard to manage and maintain control.

These are the main things that come to mind when having your dog off lead further than 5 metres. All in all, it’s up to parenting and deciding what you think is best for your dog/s. In my opinion, which I hope to have demonstrated through this blog post, dogs should not be roaming further than 5 metres from their owners, but freedom on a long lead is still important.

*Pictured: Tootsie and Roxy on a long lead walk. Context: When we lived at our previous house there were a few large green spaces close by that we would usually take the dogs on walks to. In her old age, Roxy stayed close by our sides and didn’t wonder off too far. We still had her on a long lead for these walks to allow her the space to move away if she smelled something interesting ect. But as she got older and older, she only walked the distance we walked. Tootsie, being the spritely young lady that she is, had a completely different outlook on her walks. She would always have a major sniff-a-thon! With the freedom of the 5 metre long lead she was able to sniff wherever her nose took her. However, when she got to the end of the lead she had to stop because she could not go any further. This allowed the opportunity for her to check in with us. When we caught up to her she was off again, sniffing the whole circumference of her surroundings that she could reach with the long lead. That's all for long leads now!

Bye

Susannah Morris