My sister Sarah is really struggling right now and I had researched your Doddle before we went to Arley Hall, Cheshire for Dogfest 2016 on Sunday with the hope that we’d find you. Sarah has ME and struggles to think straight. I had found you online before hand and was hoping that your Doddle would make life easier for Sarah and her new puppy. I was right…… Sarah is often not very mobile and already school runs with her little Tavish are a breeze as she was always forgetting his lead.
I too have road tested your Doddles on both of our dogs. We have a nervous Cockapoo (Monty) who we have on and off the lead what feels like a hundred times when we regularly walk along our local river and the Doddle pod is great for just grabbing him for a few seconds while we pass other dogs on our walks. I love it!
The Doddle pod on our deaf Labradoodle (Hobbs) is great too. He’s now been fitted with a special harness and I’m working hard to train him to walk close to me and constantly check in with sign signals. I’m working with our lovely vet and the deaf dog network and realised yesterday that the fact that the Doddle retracts all the time when Hobbs is walking beside me means that he doesn’t have the constant distraction of the end of a lead dangling around his face as when I walked him on a fixed lead as being deaf he relies totally on visual cues. I was always having to bundle up the lead in my hand before. (I hate the big heavy retractable handle leads with having 2 dogs). It also means that if and when I feel safe enough to let him off the lead I can grab him at a moments notice which is crucial with a deaf dog.
We only popped to Arley for the afternoon on Sunday and I’m so glad we managed to find you.