Have to agree with the longline issues. So many dogs have them around here since the pandemic, but so few people seem to know how to use them properly.
I have seen so many tangles and trips, dogs getting wrapped and knotted around each other playing and longlines trailing across the footpath and cycle path that it’s downright dangerous.
I use longlines for my pup, so not averse to them at all, but you need to be attentive and actually handle the lead/dog, not just attach a trailing line and let them zoom off across the park out of your control.
Fundamentally I think the problem is the handlers, rather than the tools. As the saying goes, ‘a bad workman always blames his tools’ and this rings very true here. The issue is people walking dogs without paying attention or having any control, they just buy a ‘tool’, often as advised on the internet and then assume their dog’s behaviour will magically be fixed without them putting in the effort of training them.
We get the usual walkers who are on their phones ignoring their dogs, but by far the worst offender in our local park has a dog that they spend an hour using a ball flinger with (twice a day) whilst wearing a 10m longline. The dog has no training at all and barks aggressively at every dog it comes across, yet the owner persistently flings the bloody ball towards other dogs who are minding their own business, including my puppy, who I was clearly training on his lead on the other side of the park, then stands their looking pathetic just repeating the dog’s name, rather than going to retrieve them. Meanwhile the longline trails in their wake creating havoc with other off-lead dogs and walkers or being dragged across the cycle/foot paths. Clearly her idea of dog control is to try and exhaust it using the flinger and of course the magical longline means he is ‘under control’. Well no it won’t and no he isn’t!