Lots of us have them in our homes. We may even be using one right now.
But experts say that dog owners need to ditch their retractable leashes.
Many people use retractable leashes because it lets their dog explore and feel like they are free to roam.
However, experts say that they can be dangerous for pets and humans alike.
Joy Williams found her a piece of metal sticking out of her 12-year-old daughter’s eye after using a retractable leash.
The leash broke and the metal clasp became lodged in her face.
“She was like, ‘Mom, I can’t see! I can’t see!'” Williams told ABCNews.com.
Her daughter needed three surgeries to repair the eye damage and will have permanent issues.
They are suing the company and the store that sold the leash saying that there should have been warning labels on the product.
Some companies, like Flexi USA, do have warning labels and include list dos and donts of how to use their products along with potential injuries that can occur if you use the product wrong.
Some of these donts include using them around babies and children.
They also suggest wearing gloves and long pants to prevent injuries.
“Dogs love them,”Ulrich Wuebker, president of Flexi USA, Inc., said. “They enjoy a little bit of freedom, but the pet parent still has them leashed. Pet parents love them because they allow their dog a little extra space to be a dog. They can sniff around and do their business.”
But there are some serious horror stories about using retractable leashes.
Some have claimed that their fingers were severed or that they or their dogs were burned or lacerated by the leashes.
Heather Todd lost a portion of her finger using a Flexi retractable leash. She said she lost control of the leash handle when the dog bolted.
The leash burned her arm and when she tried to brush the cord off, her finger got caught and pulled her to the ground.
She was dragged a few feet.
“I look up and there’s a fingertip right in front of me,” she said. “I didn’t comprehend, ‘Oh, Heather, there’s your fingertip laying there in the sand.'”
Dr. Karen Becker says that leashes are intended to keep a dog within an owner’s control and that retractable leases often do the opposite of that.
She says they are responsible for many injuries to both dogs and their owners.
Her website gives several reasons not to use a retractable leash.
They can allow your dog to run in the middle of the street or make unwanted contact with people and dogs since they can extend up to 26-feet.
It’s harder to pull your dog back and gain control since they usually have thin strings.
Becker says these thin strings are also easier to snap. These can fly backwards and injure the dog walker.
One can also get tangled in the cord which can result in burns, cuts, and amputation.
Dogs can also be severely injured by the sudden jerk that occurs when they run out of leash.
They can hurt their neck or lacerate their tracheas and even hurt their spine.
The noise that occurs when the handle falls can startle and scare a dog more and cause it to take off running.
It’s also harder to leash train a dog with a retractable dog because they learn that pulling extends the lead.
“In most cases, these devices are also wholly counterproductive to training a dog to walk politely on lead. The very nature of retractables trains dogs to pull on the leash to extend the lead. Needless to say, this pulling behavior will be repeated whenever the dog is on a standard leash,” she says.
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