Retractable Leashes Need a License to Use

Shay had her day of beauty today. While I was waiting for her to be presented to me after her grooming I witnessed one of the scariest things ever.

A very frail elderly woman came in the vets with her two well groomed but ill behaved Bichons. Each was on their own retractable leash. Neither paid one bit of attention to what their human was asking of them. Not that she asked forcefully.

As the human was standing there, in a pair of fur lined mules, her full grown dogs circled her in opposite directions wrapping the even expanding leads from their retractable leashes around her thin legs. The dogs had her hostage in less than a blink of an eye.

I was quickly fearful that she was going to go down and break a hip. I asked if I could help and she said, “No,” but I feared the blood was being cut off to her lower extremities.

Thankfully a tech came out and unhooked the dogs from their leashes and another tech unwrapped the retractable leads. The human had to be in her late eighties, my guess based mostly on her recently pumped up hairdo.

It seemed to me that this wrapping was a normal occurrence as she feared not for her ever shortening life and that her dogs were so badly behaved they had to be getting away with this behavior forever. They were equally coiffed as their human so they certainly were pampered.

I feel like humans should have to take a test to see if they could handle a dog on a retractable leash and if they want to have two they need to pass the test with their two dogs at least once a year. This woman could have handled two dogs on two short leashes, but not on retractable. Her demise is eminent.