Flexi Leads Why do people use them?

[french_fry]

[QUOTE=RobinL;7774595]
We went to our city’s newly opened dog park last evening with our 2, on Flexis. BUT they were locked down to short length until we got in, then let out a bit to check things out and meet other off leash dogs. (We were in the 30 lb and under area.) Once it was determined there weren’t any badly behaving dogs, they went off leash. More dogs showed up and some started playing and running around. Miss Corgi got her bossy out, so she went back on the Flexi, but with some length so she could lay out and watch, but not try to herd. I do have to say there were no other Flexis at the park that I saw, but I was responsible with mine and her bossy self. The other guy stuck pretty close for the most part, but then started to try to play a bit. We mostly went for him but didn’t want to leave the other one a home.[/QUOTE]

This is legitimately dangerous. Didn’t the dog park have signage instructing you that all dogs must be off leash?

First, being leashed around loose dogs can make dogs very claustrophobic and leash-aggressive.

Secondly, there is absolutely no safe way to “let [the flexi] out a bit” to allow them to meet loose dogs without danger of causing a snarl or losing control of your dog.

I think if the other posters who are insisting that they use Flexis safely posted their actual use of the Flexis their habits would turn out to be not so safe after all…

[RobinL]

No, there is nothing at the dog park stating they must be off leash. My letting her out a bit wasn’t even as much as a standard leash so I did have control to pull her off if necessary. Better than having to dive in and try to grab a collar if something did happen! I know MY dog and how she is on a leash and I understand that some dogs do act out on a leash. I also know some act out when not leashed and that is what I was preparing for. The dog park specifies for non-aggressive dogs, but I know that is not always the case and it’s only been open a week now. We were not long line Flexi in a pack of dogs at all. I had more issues with kids running up to try to pet the dogs without asking. Kids are supposed to be closely supervised and I stopped more than one from just jumping on them to pet them!

[NCRider]

[QUOTE=french fry;7775186]
This is legitimately dangerous. Didn’t the dog park have signage instructing you that all dogs must be off leash?

First, being leashed around loose dogs can make dogs very claustrophobic and leash-aggressive.

Secondly, there is absolutely no safe way to “let [the flexi] out a bit” to allow them to meet loose dogs without danger of causing a snarl or losing control of your dog.

I think if the other posters who are insisting that they use Flexis safely posted their actual use of the Flexis their habits would turn out to be not so safe after all…[/QUOTE]

Agreed. My first thought immediately went to a dog scrum with two high tensile wires attached to two of the dogs - serious lacerations or amputations to the other dogs or the people who reach in to intervene.

I don’t like flexis in general but I really don’t like people who let
their dogs on flexis interact with other dogs.

Flexis amplify the risks of really irresponsible dog owners. If I don’t want to let my dog say hi to your dog on a regular 6 foot leash-I have to give you a 6 foot wide berth. If you’ve got your dog on a flexi, I basically behave as if your dog is at liberty. I have to cross the street because I guarantee that you’ll start letting out the lead so your dog can come say hi and because you’re so far away, I have to raise my voice and tell you to keep your dog away.

My favorite flexi experience was the woman who had her small terrior/hound mix on a flexi, fully extended on a city street in a crowd of people. The dog shifted paths so that the three of us formed a triangle, with my lower leg as one of the sides. By the time I got away, I had a hole in my pants leg and a laceration in my skin. She refused to acknowledge anything wrong.

[RobinL]

Again, I fail to see the difference in a locked flexi vs a “standard” leash. It’s a new dog park and I treated it as no different than meeting a loose dog on the street until I know the dogs. I wanted to be able to control my dog without sticking hands in. Previously we had local parks with walking paths and all dogs met on leashes. Mine do not meet any dog or person on a loose flexi. And I’m not the type to ask if my dog can meet yours and bother you. Usually its the other way around.

[MontanaDun]

Gosh – I wish I were so smart that I could just dismiss anyone who uses different tools and training techniques as a big dummy who shouldn’t own a dog. Maybe someday, I will get that smart. Maybe not.

[Twisting]

I use a flexi for my dogs, but I’m also not a moron about it. Going somewhere with tight quarters, like the vet or the groomer, they have a 6 foot leash. Taking a stroll around the neighborhood they get the flexi so they can run around and sniff. The rules are still there. No one sets paw in the roadway and they can roam the grass to their hearts content. If we see anyone, person, dog, cat, whatever, they get wound in and walk beside me. I usually see people long before they do, since they are so busy sniffing. Of course my dogs are only 12 pounds.

If they are running full out and it looks like they are about to hit the end of the leash I tend to engage the “anti-lock breaks” I’ll hit the lock just a little to slow them down before they hit the end. The little darlings have brains the size of walnuts, sometimes they get all excited and forget the leash is there. A long line would probably weigh more than they do, and would take a heck of a lot more pulling from them than the flexi. I wouldn’t want one hanging off their martingale collars.

They don’t pull once they have hit the end of the leash. Walking off leash is not an option as they are sighthounds and too independent to ever have a reliable recall.

I don’t bring them to horse shows, I typically have a horse to deal with, why would I want the dogs there.

[Grover]

I was at an agility trial today and a woman was walking with two adult dogs on regular leashes and a puppy on a fully retracted flexi. Suddenly the puppy was loose because the flexi broke where the flat part and the retractable cord connect. Luckily it was an indoor trial and the puppy didn’t get too far.

[kdow]

Are regular long leashes really that difficult to manage? I prefer the feel of a long leash to a flexi anyway - the flexi contraption feels like it gets in the way of communicating with the dog via the leash. (I don’t keep the lead tight, but if the dog is not quite attending to me I like to be able to do a sort of half-halt where I take up the slack and then release it. Often with one of my dogs who is trained just the lift of the clip on the collar ring is enough sound/movement to make them remember “oh yeah, I am supposed to pay attention to person, not rabbit.”)

Plus I’ve seen dogs trying to run away from the clattery plastic handle when they got loose somehow, and that alone puts me off them even with a trained dog. Scares the dog, makes it harder to catch the end of the leash since the plastic handle whacks around into hands and shins. The ideal of course is that you never drop it, but you can’t be sure that will always be the case, accidents happen.

[Lazy_Palomino_Hunter]

[QUOTE=french fry;7775186]

I think if the other posters who are insisting that they use Flexis safely posted their actual use of the Flexis their habits would turn out to be not so safe after all…[/QUOTE]

French Fry, here ya go:

I use Flexis with my dogs for hiking.

My dogs are very well trained. When we are walking in populated areas they walk nicely on their leather leashes (loose leash, heel position, sit when I stop, yada yada).

When we are on trails, I keep my dogs on industrial strength 26’ flexis. They’re normal nylon leash width the whole 26’ instead of that stupid dangerous string, and they let my dogs run in 52’ circles around me if they really want.

Both my dogs are trustworthy off leash with rock-solid recalls… but I run into enough morons hiking with reactive unleashed dogs that I want to be able to yell “you are an irresponsible dog owner for not leashing your dog” without being a hypocrite. So I use the 26’ flexis.

My dogs know the “criteria” for walking on each leash-

• leather leash = heel/loose leash
• flexi with following pressure (i.e., retract/extend function is on) = do whatever, go sniff whatever, as long as you don't pull.
• flexi locks + voice command "wait" = stop and wait until your handler gets to you, then wait for the next command
• flexi locks + voice command "come" = return to heel position
• flexi locked to a normal leash length = heel on a loose leash

Every single time they hit the end of the flexi, I stop until they come back to me and return to the heel position, where they must remain until I release them. They learned pretty quickly that pulling on a flexi is very counter-productive.

When we see another dog coming (leashed or not), we step as far off the train as we can and I put my dogs in down-stays until the other dog(s) have passed. Always.

My point: flexis do have an actual useful purpose. And training a dog to walk on one like a good citizen is different than training a dog to walk on a regular leash, but it is certainly possible.

[I][B]What people need to remember is this: the average dog owner really sucks at both reading and training their dog. They yell at their dogs for growling. They don’t have a clue how to read stress signals. They “rub their nose in” an accident they find 4 hours after the fact. They think they have to “dominate” their dog. They think an hour penned up alone in the backyard is as good as a walk.

And they probably haven’t a clue how to train Fluffy to walk nicely on any leash, flexi or not.

[/B][/I]Flexis just happen to be a tool readily available to them that avoid the need to teach their dog to walk on a leash, and so their use impacts responsible dog owners more than those other things.

I’d rather see a moron with a dog on a flexi than a moron with a dog off leash. Period.

[NCRider]

[QUOTE=Lazy Palomino Hunter;7781731]
French Fry, here ya go:

I use Flexis with my dogs for hiking.

My dogs are very well trained. When we are walking in populated areas they walk nicely on their leather leashes (loose leash, heel position, sit when I stop, yada yada).

When we are on trails, I keep my dogs on industrial strength 26’ flexis. They’re normal nylon leash width the whole 26’ instead of that stupid dangerous string, and they let my dogs run in 52’ circles around me if they really want.

Both my dogs are trustworthy off leash with rock-solid recalls… but I run into enough morons hiking with reactive unleashed dogs that I want to be able to yell “you are an irresponsible dog owner for not leashing your dog” without being a hypocrite. So I use the 26’ flexis.

My dogs know the “criteria” for walking on each leash-

• leather leash = heel/loose leash
• flexi with following pressure (i.e., retract/extend function is on) = do whatever, go sniff whatever, as long as you don't pull.
• flexi locks + voice command "wait" = stop and wait until your handler gets to you, then wait for the next command
• flexi locks + voice command "come" = return to heel position
• flexi locked to a normal leash length = heel on a loose leash

Every single time they hit the end of the flexi, I stop until they come back to me and return to the heel position, where they must remain until I release them. They learned pretty quickly that pulling on a flexi is very counter-productive.

When we see another dog coming (leashed or not), we step as far off the train as we can and I put my dogs in down-stays until the other dog(s) have passed. Always.

My point: flexis do have an actual useful purpose. And training a dog to walk on one like a good citizen is different than training a dog to walk on a regular leash, but it is certainly possible.

[I][B]What people need to remember is this: the average dog owner really sucks at both reading and training their dog. They yell at their dogs for growling. They don’t have a clue how to read stress signals. They “rub their nose in” an accident they find 4 hours after the fact. They think they have to “dominate” their dog. They think an hour penned up alone in the backyard is as good as a walk.

And they probably haven’t a clue how to train Fluffy to walk nicely on any leash, flexi or not.

[/B][/I]Flexis just happen to be a tool readily available to them that avoid the need to teach their dog to walk on a leash, and so their use impacts responsible dog owners more than those other things.

I’d rather see a moron with a dog on a flexi than a moron with a dog off leash. Period.[/QUOTE]

No one in my town uses the real full width nylon flexi’s. I don’t even think they sell them in the pet stores. All we have are the thin wire ones. I suspect part of the debate here is about location. There is nowhere in my town where walking a dog on a flexi would be appropriate. Too many people and cars. A more rural area would likely be different.

[La_Gringa]

I use them but with my thumb firmly on the break in case I have to use it. I also have taught mine to “wait” for things, which helps. When there is another dog/person I reel them in short, put the brake on, and it works ok.

Mine live in a condo with me so its their little freedom, but my boxer is older 11 and the frenchie is 7… so they are not wild. When the boxer was young and bouncy it wouldn’t have worked

[moving_to_dc]

[QUOTE=NCRider;7782050]
No one in my town uses the real full width nylon flexi’s. I don’t even think they sell them in the pet stores. All we have are the thin wire ones. I suspect part of the debate here is about location. There is nowhere in my town where walking a dog on a flexi would be appropriate. Too many people and cars. A more rural area would likely be different.[/QUOTE]

All I have found/purchased over the last few years are the “leash” type Flexi’s. I haven’t had a “rope” one in 20 years or so. And I have never, ever seen a wire one.

I suppose I might be able to find sub-par lesser quality Flexi knock-offs at a dollar store or something similarly cheap… But I typically buy my leashes/collars at major chain pet stores, or privately owned stores that carry quality items.

We’ve camped all over 49 states. Our dogs are walked on Flexi’s at every campground, and at every roadside rest stop between campgrounds. The Flexi’s are locked short until we are in a clear “dog walk” area where they are then let out to sniff around and do their business. The only time my dogs are on a 6’ leash is when we go to the vet, or if we have to stay in a hotel for a night.

[_Teddy]

Lets just say i drop stuff like alot, my cats dont spook if the flexi drops, and those who do run straight to the door

One doesnt go past the step then gets scared(no leash needed)
One does not get the walk privlige(hello mr angry? And can contort out of every harness)

One is not trained

Last could care less(but all 7lbs of him scares dogs! He looves dogs)

I am an affectionado of leashes and harnesses

Right now this cool fabric shirt esq harness that glows in the dark!! Matching refective leash!

[_Teddy]

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10154651349740611&id=605150610

[Lix_Tetrax]

I myself am not fond of Flexis. My mom however adores them and uses one for one of our dogs all the time. Including when the dog goes to the barn. And tangles everyone up, drags you everywhere, and fights with BM’s dogs who live in property.

So yeah. After tripping and falling so much, not a fan.

[S1969]

[QUOTE=Lix Tetrax;7784042]
I myself am not fond of Flexis. My mom however adores them and uses one for one of our dogs all the time. Including when the dog goes to the barn. And tangles everyone up, drags you everywhere, and fights with BM’s dogs who live in property.

So yeah. After tripping and falling so much, not a fan.[/QUOTE]

Sounds to me like your mother and the dogs are the problem, not the type of leash.

[_Teddy]

Your right our 7lb cats are in idinerod training woooo!!
Team siamese here!

A set of dobes whom we have seen their whole life are literally the only 2 dogs not afraid of my 8lb siamese, its hilarios cause he just wants to play! Scares the crap out of the mini snauzer next door! And the other dogs!