Harness test run

I mentioned in my last post that I would try out the four harnesses I own to see which one was good for tethering Amika in the front yard. This was so that we could avoid neck injury on the 5m line. Here are the pro’s and con’s of each harness:

Halti harness:

• good – not used for anything else, light weight and easy to put on.
• bad: doesn’t fit or work well, if it unhooks from collar she can step out of it.

Tracking harness:

• good – very easy to put on.
• bad – ‘should’ be used only for tracking, not that I’ve been following this.

Car harness:

• good – easy to put on.
• bad – a tad too small, can hurt her when she hits the end of the line.

Sledding harness:

• good – the most comfortable, safe, non-damaging harness.
• bad – a little tricky to put on, designed to be comfy when pulling, should be used to encourage pulling.

I decided to try the dud first (the halti), since the other harnesses were used for other things or were too small. Yep, it didn’t fit very well, but I remembered a post from someone somewhere on a forum talking about flipping the harness upside down to use on bully breeds, as it fit better. So I tried it, did some re-adjusting and was fairly happy with what it looked like. It makes it slightly harder to put on, since you need the forefeet (instead of head) inside the loop of harness to put it on.

Then I did some more thinking and fussing with the poor dog. I decided to try using the clip – on ring that would normally be on the top. This harness has another ring on the chest too. When I originally tried to walk her on it, I found that it rode up under her armpits and didn’t seem to affect her direction all that much when she was reacting to another dog. (and one time while trying to man handle her during a reaction, I accidentally grabbed and unclipped the collar clip and ended up with her wearing a loose belt that was about to slip over her hind quarters!) So I tried attaching the lead under her belly, and it seemed to work really well. She responded to the pressure without seeming distressed or particularly uncomfortable. No need to try the other harnesses at this stage.

When the lead is attached under the belly and the harness is fitted as shown below, the pull is down on her back just at the back of her shoulders, and backward under her forearms. The front of the harness attaches to her collar (very important, or the chest band drops down, gets stepped over, and then the belly band slips down and off hind quarters – freeing the dog). This attachment means there is also a downward pressure on her collar if she pulls.

This downward / backward pressure is all a bonus. The pull from the top of the dog’s back on a regular harness means that with force from the back legs, the forequarters are lifted off the ground. This is putting the dog in an aggressive / hyped body pose. Having the harness pull downward is putting the dog in an appeasing / calming body pose (as in a play bow). The final bonus is that it seems less inclined to tangle than when the lead is attached to the top of the dog. It’ll be interesting to see how it works out.