- Hey everyone, it's Laura V here with Chester, Cashew, and the wonderful Shari from Best Friends Pets. Thank you so much for joining us.
- My pleasure.
- Now today we're talking about choosing the right harness and making sure it's fitted properly.
- Yep!
- Oh hello, buddy. Can you talk us through what is the best way to choose the right harness for your puppy?
- Yeah, absolutely.
- So, it's all about getting the right fit for your dog. So every dog's body is going to be shaped slightly differently, so not one harness will fit all breeds. It's also really really important to understand what the main function of your harness is going to be for. So, you've got your general, every day, we're going for a walk, we're going out and about harness. Can also be used for training, things like that. So, that's what we're gonna fit on Chester today.
- Awesome. The other ones you've got are your car specific harnesses. So one's designed with a slightly broader chest plate in them, and that just gives the dog more security when actually positioned in the car and safely secured. The other one that we have, or other type of harness that we have is a training harness. Now, there's lots of different training harnesses out there. So, again, not every type will work for every breed of dog, so it's really important to find the right one with the right training tools. Just basic techniques for with handling to get the best response out of your puppy or your dog.
- Amazing, so can you, with my little tubby Staffy here,
- Yeah!
- Can you fit this gorgeous harness around him so that people know how to do it properly, 'cause that's really important, fitting the tool properly so that the dog's comfortable and you can use it properly as well.
- Yeah, absolutely.
- Right, take it away.
- So, we've just got a basic EzyDog Chest Plate Harness here, so one of the most common types of harnesses around. All right, and this, we love these types of harnesses because they have two points of adjustment so, one for around the neck and then one for around the belly. This one comes with a little sneaky one as well, you can actually adjust where the chest plate sits by moving the belly strap. All right, so what we'll start with is, while you're feeding him some treats so he's nice and calm,
- I'm not bribing him at all.
- No.
- This is reinforcing good behavior.
- We're gonna fit the collar strap, so this is the one that goes around the neck. All right, and it's really important we fit the collar strap like a normal collar, we want a nice comfortable two fingers sliding there, no pressure, not too loose.
- That's really important because a lot of people don't actually know how well to fit a collar. So you to be able to fit just two fingers comfortably underneath it.
- Yep!
- Beautiful.
- Yep! And then, we're gonna pop his little leg through that strap there. And he's being such a good boy.
- He's enjoying this.
- He's loving it. Loving the attention. And then we've got the belly strap. So, with our belly straps, we're just gonna make that a little bit bigger.
- Breathe in Chester, a little bit, good boy.
- That's okay. So, with these barrel body dogs, it's like, we've got Staffys, Rottweilers, Bulldogs. It's really important that we do make that comfortable fit. And once we've actually got the harness on, what we're looking for is this strap here, okay, we don't want it cutting up under the arms. We don't want it to sit forward. We want it to follow the ribcage down and underneath. Now, to get the fit of this strap right, what we do is we pick up the leg of the dog, and what we don't want is the elbow to slip in to where my thumb is. If your dog's leg slips, they're able to actually get this harness off.
- We don't want that.
- We don't want that, okay, not very secure. Okay, and that's Chester in his little harness.
- It's beautiful, how handsome does he look?
- I know, blue is definitely your color.
- And why do you think harnesses can be great for people with, perhaps they don't want to use a collar. What's good about this kind of tool do you think?
- Alrighty, so for dogs that get a little bit boisterous when we're out and about walking, things like that, it takes the pressure of immediately off the neck. It give you a little bit more control of the body as long as you don't have lik a Husky in one of these, 'cause, being a sled dog, they're bred to pull. But, with someone like Chester, who's probably gonna get excited when we see other dogs, it just gives you that little bit more security that we're not putting the pressure on his neck, so he's not gonna be harmed around the neck. But, we've got control of him, he's nice and safe, he's nice and secure. And he's nice and comfortable. That's the biggest importance.
- Beautiful, I love what you're saying about making sure the dog feels comfortable, because that makes the owner feel much better about things as well.
- Yep!
- Now, if people have puppies now and they're watching these videos, and they want to come down to a Best Friends pet store to get fitted for the right harness.
- Yeah.
- Is that something that you guys can help do?
- Absolutely, and we'll always try to find the right size to get the most growth out of as well. So, we all know puppies grow, we don't want to be having to change harness sizing every two to four weeks, which can happen if the wrong harness style is selected for the wrong dog.
- Well, there you have it. Make sure to head down to your nearest Best Friends pet store to get the expert help from people like Shari to make sure you can get the harness for your pooch fitted absolutely perfectly.
