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The Beginning - Our Story  It all started when our son, then aged 8, joined our local 4-H Dog Care & Training project. Carmella became the leader with 8 children and their dogs. The most amazing leashes walked into the training classes, all unsuitable. One of the parents had a great idea - a friend worked at a local leather shop and she set up a "Make A Leash" night where, for a nominal fee, we would teach the children to make their own leather leashes. Small children, heavy leather, cutting with razor sharp tools and how do we make leashes anyway? After a few hours, the kids were beaming and the leashes they made outstanding! Ten years later, we still hold make a leash night for our 4H Dog Project kids, but it's now held in our own workshop. Our project has grown to over 30 and those little kids in the first class now teach the class. And, for the curious, we've only had one cut in over 200 kids! Our son used his leash all the time and an obedience trainer saw his leash, asked him where he got it, and wanted to know where she could get them for her students. "I made it," he replied. She told him that he should make and sell them to the folks in her classes. His leash making business took off and soon we were buying whole leather hides to make into leashes. Since things had progressed to using whole cow hides to make the leashes, we had lots of leather scraps. One night, a good friend of ours, who was lure coursing her Borzoi’s, suggested that he make lure slip leashes for her dogs. She had been borrowing slip collars and really needed her own. She also encouraged us to run our basenjis and we too needed slip leashes. As our son says, "Next thing I knew, my mom was participating in trials around our area and people wanted to buy the lure coursing slip leashes we used." We spoke to many lure coursing enthusiasts, to learn what they wanted in a lure slip collar. We then went to a world class saddle-maker who taught us what we were doing wrong with our construction and set us straight with our methods. We searched for hardware suppliers that carried only the best in welded, stainless steel and solid brass fittings. We still make the Competition 6' leashes featuring an equine style pinch snap. We made this choice because of our 4H children. We saw, at that very first class, that standard leash clips were difficult for the children to open and secure to their dog's collars. They could open the equine snap easily and since we knew that they were strong enough to control a horse, they should work for dogs. After watching the leashes used over the course of years by a countless number of children and adults, we've not changed our clip choice. And never has one of our children lost a dog because of a problem with their leash clip. |
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