After a long day at work, the last thing most folks want to do is lug a 100-pound ball of drooling, pent-up energy around, all the while shoveling and hauling its feces. But that's exactly what dog owners have to do every day – rain, snow, ice and below-zero temperatures notwithstanding. The Smart Dog Leash aims to make the process a tad smoother by storing every item that you'll need to walk your dog safely and sanitarily.
Certain rambunctious dogs – for the sake of narrative, we'll say a chocolate lab named Duncan and a Chesapeake Bay retriever named Bambi – have a way of going absolutely bat-mess crazy when it's time to walk. Maybe Duncan tears around the house and plays "just try and put that leash on me" while Bambi gets crazy hyper and jumps all over her owner – who we'll call C.C. Weiss to keep things easy. In the melee, said owner tends to forget certain key accessories like poop bags, flashlight and water bowl. Such items are easy to forget at first but become painfully obvious when C.C. is grasping blindly in blackness with a plastic-bag glove, or a dog or two is hyperventilating uncontrollably under the hot midday sun.
The creator of the Smart Dog Leash has clearly walked his share of dogs, probably two at a time, possibly possessing the exact characteristics of Duncan and Bambi. The smart leash essentially thinks for the dog owner, organizing everything he or she could possibly need for a daily walk around the block and some things (s)he'll need for a longer hike or adventure.
It all begins with the basics: a retractable leash with ergonomic handle. Like a few other leashes out there, it also has a place to store doggie bags. From there it really sets itself apart with an LED flashlight, handy for night walks; an LCD clock, handy for time-sensitive walks; and a built-in water bowl handy for long, hot, panting walks. It even has a container for storing treats, which any warm-blooded canine will tell you is handy for every walk and all the minutes in between.
So now, instead of spending 10 minutes running around the house to gather the baggies, flashlight, collapsible bowl, treats, etc., you can focus on getting Bambi and Duncan to sit still long enough to get their leashes clipped – or whatever relevant countermeasures you take against your dog's pre-walk routine. That seems worth the US$26, assuming your dog fits the description of "small to medium."
Source: FredFlare via Red Ferret
Retractable leashes are for lazy dog owners that don't want to take the time to properly teach their dog how to walk and to establish their proper pack position.
It may be that such a leash is part of the reason Duncan and Bambi are "bat-crazy messes" - her owner doesn't know or care how to establish the proper relationship and behavior.
Why? Because any dog whose leash doesn't restrict him/her to a distance of no more than six feet from the human on the other end is legally considered "off-leash." It should be self-evident to any thinking dog-owner that when a dog can get more than six feet from the person holding the leash, that person has very little to no control whatsoever of that dog.
I even know an attorney whose dogs are well-trained, friendly, non-aggressive model citizens who, in addition to keeping them on less-than-six-foot leashes, will not walk them without also having them muzzled. He knows all-too-well the legal risks of dog ownership in a highly-litigious society.
This "improvement" in the common dog leash should be renamed the Smart Dog / Stupid Owner leash.
They already sell these in Holland for about half the price, but they don't have a place for the treats. Dogs don't get treats in Holland, so they are thin and fit like the Dutch. If your dog is overweight (like mine and me I'm afraid), stroppy Dutch ladies tap you on the shoulder and say "your dog is too fat".
Only problem with the device is that dog leads often get dropped when the dog pulls and this kills the bulb in the torch. A tough bulb or LED is needed.
"Why do I see so many 'inventions' and even some patents on US websites which are already on sale in Europe?"
I'm not sure why you assume gizmag.com is a US website, Doug, but a simple whois.com domain name search reveals it to be an Australian site registered in the electoral division of Batman, formerly Northern Melbourne.