One early Monday morning, back in 1999, when I was a young father and new homeowner, I was running late to take the trash out to the curb. I could hear the garbage truck fast approaching my house, as I hurried out the door. My son, who was five-years-old back then, took a small bag to the front curb, while I ran to the backyard to get the larger cans.
On my return to the front yard, I could see my young son smiling excitedly, about an item the garbage men were showing him in an old tattered cardboard box. The mystery item was squeaking and moving about in the box, Turns out it was a puppy! Someone had set her on the curb with the trash... of course, we kept her. We named her Secret. Secret was our family dog from 1999 - 2014.
Necessity is the Mother of invention
When Secret was young, she was very feisty. She chewed up, or broke, every leash we put on her. We must've bought every kind of leash on the market. Then one day, while I was at work, I noticed a pile of nylon straps that were being thrown out as garbage. These were the same straps that had been used to haul up to 3,000 pounds of flooring material. At that time, I was ready to use a tow truck chain to walk her, lol. I needed something that she could not break. It only made sense to make her a leash from the nylon straps. I was right... the nylon straps worked perfectly; she never broke it!
How Did I Start Making Dog Leashes?
The first leash was plain and practical. My kids did not like using it, because they said it looked like they were walking her with an old dirty belt. I had a lot of extra nylon straps, so I decided to make another leash and decorate it with some extra pieces of fabric. We made her several leashes. We started getting creative. We added padding to the handle to make it softer, we bought fancy leather fabrics. Eventually, others began to ask us to make them a personalized leash, too.