@brothersnook Yeah it’s really only an issue if the dog pulls (I imagine with regular-ish dogs that it’s a surprise squirrel or something). My dog only really pulls around triggers but it’s enough to make me cry lol. And I even wind the leash under his front leg so I kinda pull him down, rather than up (like a front clip harness). For me the potential is too great a risk for casual use, rather than necessity. But like I said, needs must and if a slip lead works best for your dog in terms of dog
or human (dis)ability then it’s really judgement call.
I only recently found out that martingales can have a “stop” point which is great for escape artists, so I’m much less leery of them. For me it’s about proper tool use as much as what the tool is (a properly used e-collar still causes pain, for example). I have found myself becoming far less judgemental as I see people with their dogs. I used to get sad to see dogs on slip leads and now here I am doing my best
. I’m now a “whatever works as safely and humanely as possible” sorta person .
As an aside, do your slip leashes have stop tabs? (question more for thought) It doesn’t quite negate the choking, but it’s an appreciable difference in safety measures as much as you can with that leash type. Any collar or leash can choke, it’s just that slips are designed with less safety in mind (again, thin rope vs wide collar). Dogs can get positively conditioned to things like seeing prongs bc they know a walk is coming and walks are their passion. But then if the prong is used on the walk it’s a whole cascade of “stuff.” So unfortunately we can’t exclusively rely on them to gauge whether something is appropriate. Love how they don’t come with individualized user manuals, that would save us so much grief lol.
Best of luck on your journey! Thank you for the well wishes!