When a girlfriend bought me a Flexi I graciously thanked her and wondered what on earth she thought my Pit-bull would do with it and now I can’t live without it; The Flexi is a Dog Leash, it is made, in Germany, of hard plastic and thick nylon cord that stretches 16 feet (5 meters).
I put the unwanted doggy gadget in a cupboard and promptly forgot about it, thinking it would be handy for an emergency.
Aside of the fact that I had convinced myself that something made of anything other than heavy chain would be inadequate for my Pit-bull, I also felt that the Flexi dog leashes were for senior citizens, or just plain lazy people!
Elsa, my dog is named after Elsa in the movie Born Free, because she was a rescue dog, and one day when we were being ‘gadabouts,’ driving around in the truck, I lost her beautiful leather handled heavy chain leash.
I was not able to afford another one, but that was when I remembered the Flexi dog leash I had stashed in the cupboard months ago for such an occasion.
It is now five months later and I am a complete and utter convert. What could possibly have happened that so drastically changed my thinking?
It was not the fact that it was made in Germany, even though the Germans do have a great reputation for quality, BMWs come to mind. It was not the fact that it was made of hard wearing German plastic, because I have an aversion to all things plastic, and just the very thought of plastic is a complete turn-off, especially when I think about durability.
While I cannot say that it is chew proof, because for some reason my dog didn’t’ attempt to chew it, I can say several things about it, that I would never want to get used to not having, if it were to be taken from me.
The first is this, my dog is exceedingly muscular and strong, and not too well trained, yet it has survived almost half a year of her running away until the whole cord is outstretched and yet it does not snap – wow – I would never have believed that – if I had not experienced.
The second is this, I can quickly reel her in if traffic is coming and she has come to know the sound and knows when I have released the lock button and she stops anticipating being reeled in.
The third thing about it that I have completely fallen in love with is that I cannot run as much as I would like to with my dog and I want her to be able to run, so I hold the Flexi above my head and she runs round and round until she wears herself out.
The final and most endearing feature about the Flexi that I discovered over these winter months was this: I don’t have a garden and when it was 40 below I just couldn’t always bring myself to walk the dog, so I wrapped the end of the Flexi around the handle of the door and let her go walk herself. She couldn’t go any farther than 16 feet, but she came back when she was ready.
So now I can honestly say that if you want to borrow my Flexi, you’ll have to fight me for it. I simply cannot get over the fact that this little contraption is so strong that even my girl with all her yanking at full speed on the end of its rope, it is still holding strong.
I believe my friend bought the dog leash at Target in Ames, Iowa, last summer. It was in the special area where they are getting rid of stock for a $1 or $2.
