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What is a strong and sturdy metal clasp of retractable leash?

The recall of Slydog retractable leash due to poor quality of metal clasp caused great discussion. It is very important to get a strong and sturdy metal clasp of retractable leash, Pugga brings some points on what is a strong and sturdy metal clasp of retractable leash!

choose a retractable leash or lead with a sturdy, heavy clasp

1) Never use one that’s rated lower than the weight of your dog or that has no size or weight rating at all. Refer to our former article on TUV test, the max loading is 3 times of the weight of purposed pet.

2) A good metal clasp has strong structure as well as strong metal - Zinc alloy. The holding ring end and the hook both must be strong enough. Due to cast moulds, a carefully designed mould guaranteed quality metal clasp. Nevertheless, the Zinc alloy must be pure to assure quality material also.

3) Be aware of the fact that most metal clasp purposed for bags use, some of them not designed specially for pets, bags just requires equivalent loading as its possible contents weight, not as strong as 75kgs for a medium size of dog.

Possible faults of the metal clasp of retractable dog leads or leashes:

Most of such metal clasp is designed for bags, which do not require strict loading, as you may know, most luggage is just about 15kgs. If you check on some bag clasp you will find it out.

1) the holding end of the metal clasp
2) the hook body
3) the linkage

Be aware of the damage it can do if it should ever break and fly back at your face. So use it with utmost care, especially if your dog is jerking at the other end.

An easy way to test the metal clasp of retractable dog leads or leashes:

Test the dog leads to a force of 500 N, which is equivalent to an average-size (20 kg) dog pulling two-and-a-half times its weight, a force that smaller, weaker people would have problems resisting. Mostly, hang yourself by hand on the handler with brake locked, pending on some place, it is much easier to find a sturdy metal clasp of retractable dog leads or leashes.

Another way is just throwing the retractable leash onto ground at height of yourself, those get no damage you could give more trust. Anyway, some stores imports retractable dog leads or leashes from outside American but required very low prices to compete with those qualified ones.

Some pictures of the metal clasp-loading test.

Pugga brings some testing pictures as well for more info of what will happen and where will broke. All pictures of our own clasp testing exceeds three times of purposed size of dogs.

A picture find on Internet, which happened in 2006. We could confirm very easily the broken clasp is only designed for bags of light luggage.

Our advice on the metal clasp of retractable dog leads or leashes

Dog responds to another dog’s barking with a pull on the lead, it is a very typical reaction. But what happened next is in no expectation. The metal clasp of the retractable dog lead snapped in half and, with its jagged edge, went flying back straight into eye, causing major damage.

We have a leash law to keep dogs on leash and using a long line is difficult (hard to reel it in, the extra slack tends to get caught around pets’ legs, hard to carry, etc) so we sometimes use the retractable leashes. Dogs were already well trained to walk on loose leash fits much better to retractable one.

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