Safety Gear - The Harness

Walk safely with a harness - Probably the only serious page in the whole site....

Luke, our brindle tigerDog, was very, very nervous when we adopted him and over the past weeks and months he has continued to shine and is now a relaxed, calm, contented and very much loved boy, however on the 1st of April 2005, we were out on an evening walk when he was spooked by a passing bus.

He began to panic and managed to twist around and then back out of his collar. This happened in seconds. Luke then ran into the center of a busy road and was clipped by a car. As he was still pumped up with adrenalin he stood back up and ran away like he was trying to set a world land speed record attempt.

We searched high-and-low for him, eventually calling in the "Heavy Squad" in the shape of our friendly GRWE volunteers. After mounting a massive sweep of the local area that evening and the following day, my wife and I found Luke in a farmers field about 2 miles from where we live. He was sore, limping and a bit bedraggled but otherwise OK. After a trip to the vet for a check-up he was pronounced fit, other than for some light bruising on his shoulder from the car and sore paws. Apparently he had "run his pads off" on the tarmac roads. He was confined to bed and light duties for two weeks - as you all know this is a tragedy for an "active" tigerDog!...

Following this scare, we have spoken to fellow owners who have also experienced a Greyhound backing out of their collar. We were suprised by this as both boys wear the recommended greyhound -fish shape- collars and we thought that they couldn't get out the collars that easily. To ensure that this event doesn't happen again, we have purchased both boys new collars and safety harnesses, shown below. They were purchased from Jans Gifts

  • image: Harnesses on Boys

    The Boys. Suited and Booted.

  • image: Close Up

    Note the exceptional quality & fit.

  • image: poseurs

    Harnesses; the new fashion "must have"

We investigated many different types of harnesses before settling on these ones. The harnesses have wide padded straps with easy-click buckles. The wide padding stops the harness straps rubbing and also allows the load of a pulling dog to be spread around the body, rather than in a localised spot which can make the dog panic more.

We completely and unreservedly recommend these harnesses. If you are interested, please visit Jans Gifts web-site.

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Disclaimer

tigerDog is not associated with, and does not receive financial gain from, Jans Gifts. We are tigerDog owners who had a massive scare when Luke backed out of his collar. Since purchasing the harnesses we can walk the boys without panicing about it happening again.

Additional: When we first received the harnesses, Jake was so taken by his that he wore it all night until bed time! You will gather that he is a serious poseur though...