About 4 months ago I got a sample of the “Walk Your Dog With Love” harness. I’d seen lots of advertisements for it and was curious about it since it boasted features that interested me. For those of you who haven’t ever heard of it before, it is a front-hook, no-pull harness (same general concept as the Sensible/Sense-ation, Freedom Front-hook, and Easy Walk) that is a little different than other commonly available harnesses. It claimed to be easy to put on, easy to fit, strong yet light webbing, reflective features, and effective at reducing pulling.

I contacted the company and got a harness to test out. Since neither Shayne nor Rio pull, I used it on a wide variety of dogs in my training classes and got the feedback from the handlers and did my own assessment on quite a few of the dogs. I tried it on two Siberian Huskies, a Newfie/Lab, quite a few Pit Bull mixes, a Shar-pei mixes, and some plain hold Heinz 57 mutts.

Pros

**I really like the reflective tabs on the harness. They are not just a little reflective either, I put Chase, the mostly black former-foster dog in the yard at night with the harness and tried to find him with a flash light. It was super easy to find him because as soon as the flashlight hit the harness, the reflective tabs were very bright.

**New users found it more intuitive to put on their dog–it was easier to figure out than the Easy-walk harness.

**It was very lightweight which is a nice change from the Easy Walk which can be very heavy with the multiple buckles/loops/rings.

**One size fits a pretty large variety of dogs the size I had fit dogs 25-55lbs and it actually fit a dog slightly larger than this.

**Users were able to pretty easily adjust the harness to fit the dog appropriately.

**It did mitigate pulling pretty well when fitted appropriately. Dogs were much less powerful with the harness on

Cons

**I really dislike the polypropylene webbing. Although it may have some benefits over nylon, it is quite rough to the touch and left quite a few short-coated dogs with red marks under the armpits and under the chest after just an hour long class–not even really walking.

**I didn’t like how the harness couldn’t be clipped to a collar for a back-up. One of the dogs got startled and started flailing and flipping on the leash (totally panicked) and was almost able to get an arm through the chest strap which would have allowed the dog to walk out of the harness. Having the ability to connect to a collar for a back up is important to me.

**I also found the fit frustrating… on more than one dog, after pulling, the chest piece got displaced and was up high enough on the neck for the dog to choke.

**It was very difficult (I was unable to actually do it) to adjust the sizing while the harness was on the dog. This is really handy to be able to make fine adjustments while the harness is on the dog instead of having to take it off–put it on–take it off–put it on to achieve desired fit

**It couldn’t be adjusted in any manner to fit Rio appropriately–granted he’s a very funny shaped dog, but by the time I got the chest “small” enough, the neck was so high up, if he pulled it choked him.

The Final Word

Overall I was not really satisfied by this harness. Although it was easy for owners to figure out how to put on and owners reported that it did give them more control over their dog’s pulling, the problems I had with the harness maintaining a proper fit, the lack of a “back-up” safety system, and the rough webbing left me wanting more. The nearly $27 price tag for the size I had didn’t help the cause–if this harness were closer to $15 I may be more inclined to suggest it as a lower cost alternative to the other harnesses I suggest. However, at $27 it’s actually more expensive than the harnesses I suggest.

Overall it’s not a bad harness (it will help mitigate pulling), just not worth the price especially with the fitting issues I had.