A drag line is just a small rope with a snap. It is about six feet long. Any time I let my puppies go "off leash" in the back yard or when taking them out for a walk in a field, I'm not going to have my hands on a leash that is attached to them. I have a drag line so that when I am ready to pick them up, I can just step down and grab the drag line.
You don't want to do that with a leash. You don't want something that has a loop or a knot or anything in the end. You want something that is just a rope -- straight, no knots, nothing to snag. You also want it small and light enough that an eight-week old bird dog puppy can drag it around and it's not going to bother him.
I've never had to chase a puppy with a drag line.
Transcript from Steve's Video:
Today we're looking at the six foot puppy drag line. This is maybe one of the most important tools that you are going to start out with. I've always felt like people miss out on this when it comes to how to get their dog to start grasping concepts that commands are not something that you just kinda feel like doing, you actually have to do them.
People don't understand that if they give commands to dogs and they can't back them up, then there's a pretty good tendency the dog's not going to follow those commands. I always tell folks if dogs would naturally come when they were called I would be doing something else for a living because there'd be no need for the majority of things that we sell.
Drag lines fix that problem. Puppies just don't necessarily have a tendency to come to you when you call them. So, we're going to let them wear this. Snap it on the collar. It's light. It's small. We actually start at a little less than eight weeks, but once they are big enough to start moving around, drag lines go with them. And they go with them everywhere.
This way, when your puppy is out there and you want him to come to you, you don't call him until you are holding the end of the rope. Now, once you are holding the end of the rope you say, "Here" or whatever command you want to use. You call your dog. If he comes to you, great. If he doesn't, then you can make him come to you. So this gives you the ability to put your hands on your dog without having to run after him or having to trick him. It just gives you the ability to enforce that command. If you start out when they are little bitty, it makes training when they are older so much easier.
I recommend that puppies wear them all the time. Now, I don't like them to have them on when they are unsupervised, but if they are going to be in a situation where they are in the backyard and they are running lose, you are taking them out for a walk, taking them out in the field, anything along those lines, they need a drag line on them.
You don't want to start off with what I would classify as a check cordanything 10, 12, 15 feet long. I've seen folks put 30 and 50 foot lines on young dogs and I don't like that. That's just a little too much. Once they get a little bit older we'll move to a 30 foot check cord.
But with a drag line I want something small and light. I really don't want them to even notice it. I also don't want anything on the end. It's not a leash. It doesn't have a loop. It doesn't have a knot or anything along those lines. We just want it to be something that we can pick up and we can enforce those commands.
