Dear Maureen,
I meant to reply as soon as my new harness arrived and I totally forgot. Now, I'm glad I waited just a bit to let you know how much MORE I love the new harness for our new dog. As I mentioned, we have had our first harness about two years. I bought it to keep our then eight year old rescued Shih Tzu, Zoe, in our fenced yard. She can go through the bar spacing of our decorative fence. It has worked so well that Zoe, after two years living with us, no longer attempts to exit the yard. I still put her harness on when I'm in the yard working as I don't want to have to watch her and I'm afraid she just might become bored and decide to wander through the fence space again. Well, now we have rescued two year old Zach, a silky terrier mix?, who weighs all of 12 pounds and chases rabbits at high speed and would chase right through the fence spacing in hot pursuit, thus, we placed an order for another harness for him.
Our new harness is fantastic as the top part where the little rod goes through is wider and holds the rod nice and flat over the top of his back. The older harness tends to "tilt" just a bit and I was worried that as young and rowdy as Zach is that he might figure a way to angle through the fence, if bar had tilted, and escape. This harness does not tilt. But, that is not all that is exciting about the Safe Behind Bars Harness for little Zach. We have found that Zach cannot go through the "pet gate" opening in our pet gates INSIDE the house. We have pet gates (gates with small pet door openings) on the laundry room and one bathroom because we have two cats and the cat food and cat litter boxes are in these rooms. We have two GoldenDoodles that we have to keep away from the cat's area and the gates have worked well to keep the big dogs out and allow the cats free entry through the small door in the gates. Zach is no bigger than the cats so he can go in and out and eat cat food and access the litter box. Ewwwww. We have now discovered that when he has his "Buzzy" on (we think it looks like a Buzz Lightyear accessory) he cannot go through the small pet door on the gate. Now, Zach wears his harness all the time, inside and outside. We do take it off at night and sometimes when I have the cat access door closed, but the harness is comfortable and works to keep him exactly where he needs to be. I believe it would work well to keep a small dog out of the litter box even without a gate if the litter box were covered and the width of the opening were no wider than the width of the harness bar.
I know, long story, but this harness has been amazing for our dogs and not just to keep them "safe" inside the yard or on a balcony or deck. Litter boxes are a common problem for people with dogs and cats sharing a home. This little harness has solved that problem at our house. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Zach & Zoe and Mum, Julie D.
Sincerely,
Julia Deardorff
Nashville, TN