E9: About the walk and the leash

Listen to episode 9. Available wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Judge lunged for a passing bus in New Jersey, and Bruce jerked the leash back with maybe a second to spare. Bowie sprinted for a pond full of ducks so fast that not even Ben's voice could call him back. Makenzie used to get her recall for free in Seattle, riding a pack of other dogs home; in London, with no pack and no dog park left, the walk itself had to become the whole point.

In all three households, the leash was never just about the dog on the other end of it.

This is a conversation about the walk in its entirety: the leash, the route, and what happens the moment it comes off.

Judge's story runs the full length of it. A trainer recommended a pinch collar when he was a puppy, certain it wouldn't hurt him. The first time he ran and hit the end of it outdoors, he choked and coughed for an hour. Bruce switched him permanently to a front-clip harness, and still keeps him on a leash on every walk except the dog park, where letting him off once meant half an hour spent unable to get him back at all.

The conversation moves through the pressure a pulling collar puts behind a dog's eye and not only the throat, something none of us had thought about until Judge's choking scare. Through the two-harness trick I read about, one harness signalling a five-minute errand and the other a real walk. Through the on-leash-dog-is-never-at-fault principle that keeps Judge leashed everywhere except the dog park, and Bowie's one blind spot, a pond full of ducks. Through what changed for Makenzie once a walk in London stopped being just a way to get somewhere.

If the leash comes off, does the responsibility come off with it?