Towline
A tow leash is a special design of a dog leash, which apart from the possibility of attaching it to the chest harness has no further eyelets, carabiners, loops or the like. At 5 to 20 meters, tow leashes are usually longer than leashes and usually also thinner (see special designs of dog leashes ).
Drag lines are used to train skills or commands that the dog should perform at a certain distance from the person in charge. As a rule, the dog pulls the sagging towline behind him so that it drags on the ground. The dog is controlled by the person in charge stepping on the leash if necessary and thus amplifying a given acoustic stop signal. The leash can also be held in the hand by the person in charge , which is particularly common in tracking work . Because of the risk of injury to the dog, tow leashes should not be attached to the collar , but always to the harness. The leading person is also at risk of injury, especially if he is trying to stop a dog from running at full speed by holding the rope with his hand. In general, gloves should be worn when working with tow lines. Stopping with your hand should nevertheless be avoided.
Recall training with the tow leash requires a long use of the leash on every walk until it can be reliably retrieved; a year can be used as a guide. If the dog can evade the recall command after removing the leash too early, training must be restarted.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Thomas Görblich: What dogs think: Everything you need to know about the inner workings of four-legged friends . MGV-Verlag 2010, ISBN 978-3-86882-168-0 , pp. 165-171.