Harnessing the full potential of our pets is something we always strive to do, but making sure we harness our pets properly is a very important decision.
Pet harnesses are used for several reasons but mostly to protect and to control our pets.
Protection takes two different forms. With some dogs, using a collar can hurt them, so if you want to walk them on leash, you need to use a harness. These harnesses are usually made from soft nylon, often mesh, with padded openings for neck and legs. The leash connection is usually located on the middle of the back.
A mesh harness allows a dog to be walked without hurting its throat. They can pull hard without injuring themselves, but these harnesses are normally only used for small dogs, whose pulling won’t endanger the person on the other end of the leash.
Harnesses can also protect our pets in vehicles. Unless your pet is in a kennel, it should be in a secure harness when riding in an automobile, both for its protection and yours. Harnesses limit the pets’ ability to roam through a vehicle and prevent them from getting underfoot or in the way of the controls. If you’re in an accident, you want to be sure they are protected from injury and prevent them from becoming a projectile that may hurt people in the car. Seatbelt harnesses are very well-constructed, usually with a substantial belly pad and a strong structure. They attach to the car using a short lead that clicks into a seatbelt receiver, or by looping through a secured seatbelt.
In addition to their safety features, harnesses are also control devices. There are a number of different methods of using a harness for control. Some use a constricting or tightening response when a dog pulls, others put the point of control in an unusual spot so that when animals pull, they are twisted in a way they find distracting.
The Sporn harness uses a collar-like device with two leads threaded through the back, which then loop under the armpits and attach to the front of the ‘collar’. The leash is attached to these leads, and when the dog pulls, the leads tighten under the legs, restricting the pulling action. For many pets, this is a very effective restraint.
Front-control harnesses utilize a connection point on the front of the harness. When the dog pulls, it twists its body back around to face the person at the other end of the leash. This prevents them from pulling straight ahead.
Both these harnesses also protect the throats of the animals, so they can be used with larger dogs which have issues with collars.
Using a soft harness or a control harness as a seat belt is not recommended. Yes, they can reduce an animal’s movement in a vehicle, but they are not built to withstand the strains of an accident, and will either fail, or worse, harm your pet.
For those with large dogs and small children, pulling or sled harnesses allow a dog to pull a load by via a padded chest strap or an X-back design that a set of traces can be attached to. They can also be used for skijoring, whereby a person on skis or rollerblades can be pulled. Whether on skis or wheels, this can be rewarding exercise for a high-energy dog.
Finding and fitting the harness or harnesses proper for your needs is a shopping trip well worth the time and effort. For both the animals’ safety and yours.