Baby got Back-Up
Oh the things we've learned the hard way... A few years ago we were running a Meetup group for Pit Bulls and their parents. Part of what we offered was group socialization walks and APBT specific training classes. We were very concerned with helping less social dogs get some exercise in a safe environment, meaning no dogs running amuck! Many of our group members used training gear like the prong collar, but no one seemed to know that this type of gear has a pretty high "failure rate." For our group events we simply required folks to "backup" their training gear.
Anyone who has put a prong collar on a dog knows how hard it can be to pinch those little prongs and get them into the little holes in the other link while your dog flails and jumps around excited to go on a walk, exactly our point! When prong collars are not put on correctly, when the links get older and become loose, or if they have a "French clip" style attachment on the chain - they can "pop open" and free your dog at the most inappropriate times (Murphy's Law).
Nowadays the trend of "backing up" seems almost mainstream, for this reason we offer our popular Double Ended Leashes in various widths and lengths. There are other ways to back up your gear that are a little more DIY, check out our Gear Guide (scroll down to the bottom of the page) for a quick, safe, and effective way to backup your prong collar until your new double ended leash arrives!
Selecting/using a double-ended leash for backup:
When you double over a 6-foot leash you end up with a 3-foot leash, well, sort of. Notice in the middle picture above how the side of the leash that is attached to Sequoia's flat collar (for backup) has a nice amount of slack in it. You will need to learn how to hold your double-ended leash so that you always have this "slack" on the backup side, otherwise you are distributing force back onto the flat collar and away from the corrective collar, which will give your dog a "nagging" correction which won't help either one of you. We recommend grabbing your leash about 18-24 inches from the end that is attached to your training tool (prong collar, etc.) then wrapping your hand/wrist with the leash at leash once to create a handle type feeling. You will notice you have a loop of loose leash by your side - this is why you do not want your double-ended leash to be too long, it will drag the ground and drive you nuts. So as you can imagine, a 6-foot double-ended leash is perfect for most people.