Does anyone have experience with these?
It’s a metal bar with a springy thing that attaches to your bike post. The dog is hooked to the springy end of the bar.
It just seems too easy for the dog to pull the bike over, but they claim the spring dampens 90% of the dog’s pull.
I have a 30 pound whippet.
No experience but a couple of questions (and former owner of a sighthound [Ibizan]):
Do they also claim it keeps the dog from running under or into the wheels of your bike?
Is there a place you can safely use this device? Safe for you, safe for the dog, safe for others?
Do you envision getting your dog to run next to your bike? Do you have any idea how long your dog can keep up a running pace? Will you be okay riding at your dog’s walking pace? YMMV, but sighthounds tend to run fast for limited periods of time but an extended trot is probably not out of the question.
I honestly think that when you are walking your dog you should be doing one thing: walking your dog. Not calling your SO on the phone, not checking e-mail on your Blackberry, and definitely not riding your bike.
It’s a fixed post with a springy thing at the end. The fixed part of it keeps the dog away from the bike.
There are wide places with little traffic that I think would be safe. Mainly residential streets.
I don’t intend to go very fast, but faster than a walk. Maybe “second gear” in terms of whippet speed. I don’t even think I could ride a bike as fast as his 4th and 5th gears. The bike is a mountain bike.
I was planning on mostly riding the bike to and from the dog park instead of driving. The biking will be mostly light tansit miles and not the primary source of exercise.
Not personally, but a few months ago we chatted up a woman on a bike with one of these things, dog attached. I had the same questions, and she said it works great and he doesn’t pull her over at all. It was a big dog too.
I still think it seems chancy.
I pet-sat a dog (shepherd/chow mix) for a month and a half once*. We’d go for walks on my bike and it was great fun. I’d hold the leash in my hand, and hold the handlebar, and he’d basically pull me around. We would just around the [residential] block a couple of times… and never very fast. He loved it. Keep in mind, though, this was a 100% residential area, there wasn’t really traffic or anything, and I barely pedaled. (We did this because he always wanted to walk way faster than me–I’d have to jog to keep up with him.)
I have no experience with this device but it looks cool. As long as it’s used appropriately I don’t see why it would be a problem.
*side rant: the owners asked if they could leave him at our house overnight. A month and a half later I was trying to find a home for him when they finally showed back up. We had 5 cats at the time so it really wasn’t feasible to take him ourselves–plus he gave all our cats fleas. The fleas gave them tapeworm. Man did that suck. 
I would be uncomfortable using a hand-held leash. I would ride around in a cold sweat with mental visions of my little pooch getting his cute little head stuck in the moving spokes. 
We have / had one that we used with our Doberman.
My wife had the contraption set up on her bike and would regularly go out with our 85 pound Doberman. She kept a moderate pace and would only go about a mile / mile and a half just to give the dog a chance to get some running in.
She never had a problem with hitting the dog nor having the dog pull away.
Correction: My wife read my post and let me know that I was mistaken. Yes, our dog was hit by the bike. Yes, the dog would pull away. At first.
When she first began using the Springer she had a couple of incidents. While she followed the manufacturers recommendations of walking the bike with our dog attached until the dog becomes used to the contraption, she was fine. It was not until she actually rode the bike that she had the issues.
On one rather long 6-mile ride (our dog, Lyric, was already conditioned to long continuous runs by this point), a squirrel passed in front of the bike. Lyric went for the squirrel, crossed in front of the path of the bike, and consequently had her paw run over by the bike. Our dog was fine minus a superficial wound on her paw. (I had forgotten about that one.) From that point, Lyric knew not to cross in front of the bike.
On another day, as my wife was riding in the opposite direction of traffic thinking, incorrectly, that having our dog closer to the sidewalk would be safer than having our dog closer to traffic, Lyric lunged toward another dog pulling the bike with her. While our dog did not knock my wife off the bike, our dog did twist the seat. My wife had to stop the bike and readjust the bike. She found that it actually works best to ride with the traffic having our dog to the left of the bike closer to traffic. When she passes other dogs that are walking up on the sidewalk, my wife increases her speed so our dog would not be inclined towards further lunges.
Also, rather than traveling at a constant speed my wife would vary her speed between short-distance sprints, longer trots, and moderately paced walks to mimic the way Lyric ran off-leash.
Once my wife trained our dog in these few aspects, everything went smoothly. Lyric very much enjoyed the outings and would get excited every time my wife would pull out the bike.
What do you do when you are riding along, your dog is at your side but 5-10 feet away, and you encounter a pedestrian? Does the dog treat it like the lamp post described in the link?
We run the NajaHound on a bike, but not with one of those widgets. It’s probably far safer than what we do, which is a leather lead clipped around the waist and running to the dog with enough room for him to keep pace with his shoulder at my heel. We had a few minor catastrophes in the first few runs, but he figured it out pretty quickly and doesn’t pull at all anymore. The lead around the waist puts any pulling force at your center of gravity anyway, so even a very athletic 120 pound dog tugging sharply sideways didn’t send me flying sideways.
As far as
goes, he’s a working breed dog who needs a rather extreme amount of exercise. No matter how fast or how long I can go on foot (not very), I will never be able to challenge his energy level without a bike or a horse. When I’m walking my dog, we’re taking a casual walk to spend relaxed walking time, or he’s working. But for serious exercise, there really is no other option for us. I tend to think a lot of behavioral “issues” people have with their dogs stem from the fact that the only time they get to get out of the house and move is a sedate human walking pace and never get much in the way of real physical exercise. Since dog parks aren’t an option for us and we don’t have endless acres of open land for him to run on, the bike it is. It allows us to run him 30-40 miles a week at a steady trot, keeps him in great shape and very mellow. When we miss a run he’s a bit of a maniac.
Oh, and about the training of Lyric, we had a similar pattern with the first few runs. Once he lunged at a nutria, crossing in front of the bike and got whacked with the tire (no injury, just “lesson learned”) and never tried it again. Once he tried crossing behind and same story, getting skidded with the tire as the leash was brought up short. If we see a distraction coming up, we speed up, which redirects his attention temporarily and we sail past. No major problems so far.
Why don’t you avoid all the bicycle-related hassles, and walk your dog with your car?
Don’t laugh, I’ve seen it more than once.
I use one of those things to run my Saluki. It works fairly well and he loves it. I did have one time where a kid on a skate board skated in front of him and spooked him. He didn’t pull the bike over, but he almost did. He’s about forty pounds.
It really is great, the dog can’t get to far away and it pretty successfull keeps him from running in front of the bike. It did take some getting used to though, he didn’t dig it much at first.
Please forgive all the snips, I hope I’m doing this right 
I was actually more concerned with the distraction of riding because it may prevent
As an aside, if your dog is a working breed he would probably benefit from lots of mental exercise. That might mitigate the need for physical exercise.
But I also think a whippet in your spokes would be a heartbreaking choice between expensive surgery or euthanasia.
11811
Word.
I’d tend to agree in general regarding the concept that a poorly trained or untrained dog would be a disaster waiting to happen when tethered to a moving bike rider. We feel pretty safe in regards to the NajaHound insofar as his level of obedience training and responsiveness.
I would, however, vehemently disagree about mental exercise being an adequate substitute for physical exercise in any capacity, or at the very least in our particular situation. They’re complimentary parts of life but one is not a direct substitute for the other. The NajaHound is a dogo argentino, first generation out of the Argentine Pampas, and like most molossoid dogs is bred for endurance and heavy duty muscle power… mental capacity and problem solving, not so much ;). By all rights he should be traveling fifty miles in a night behind a horse and capping it off by catching, wrestling with, and subduing a couple of 400 pound wild boars. I suspect that on the intelligence spectrum of Irish Setter -> Border Collie, he falls somewhere in the range of “processed cheese”. I jest because I am madly in love with this dog, he’s the greatest, but a mental giant he is not.
Again I’ll reiterate that he needs a rather extreme amount of exercise as far as pet dogs go and that such may not be necessary for other dogs, in particular those with a long tradition of being bred in this country, by, and for Americans, and as suburban American pets–but will also stick to my (on topic) point that it’s a good way to give a dog a run where other options may not be available. I don’t mean to hijack or babble on about this, but I do get a bit :dubious:, :rolleyes:, and :smack: to those (not you or anyone else in this thread or on this message board) folks who get one of these dogs–or any other “exotic” working breed of dog because it looks cool or they need a canine status symbol, and then stick it in a back yard behind a fence in suburban America and expect it to be comfy, happy, and well-behaved being a pet with zero other outlet, physical or otherwise. I also think that in general, just like people, most dogs don’t get enough exercise, and by extension applaud anyone looking to give their dog more exercise, whatever the breed.
And a late attempted edit:
About the whippet in the spokes, that’s another valid point you make–a bike crash with my pooch is not going to mean much to him in the way of physical injury. YMMV in the concern with other breeds and other dogs.
Is he neutered? My Ibizan Hound Iiko, would walk 1-1/2 hours three times a day on weekends. After he got neutered at around 5 years (to overcome prostate swelling), he lost some of his interest in the long game.
I’ve seen the Dogos at shows and in the dog mags. They’re beautiful animals. And yes, I was thinking Whippet in the spokes would be a bigger deal than big dog in the spokes.
You can buy spoke covers or even make them.. (This came up recently on an email list I’m on.)
I have a Springer and have used it only a little. But that’s mostly because I’m a big weenie and am afraid of falling with the bike if my excitable dog takes off unexpectedly. I tore up my knee a while back, and I never want to go through anything like that again.
Getting old sucks.
On a slightly related note, a family friend used to own a blind golden retriever. We used to take him with us on our bikes, and as long as we rode smoothly, not turning sharply or accelerating or braking hard, he’d keep his ear about a foot from the little clicky-thing on the back wheel, listening to tell where we were. He loved it; being blind, it was about the only time he ever got to run.