So on the corgi forum where I hang out, I’ve read about this harness that hooks to the leash in front, instead of up at the back. The strange positioning of the leash clip discourages your dog from surging forward and dragging you down the street.
Perfect, think I, for Ruby the World-Class Iditarod Champion.
Yesterday I happen upon a new-to-me locally owned pet store, which just opened next to my habituated Trader Joe’s. When I go in to shoof it out, I run across one of these exotic harnesses. Naturally, I buy it: size medium. The cost: $39.99.
I put this on Ruby early this morning, when it’s cool enough to walk — along about 4:30.
Amazingly, it works as advertised: Ruby walks right along with me. Right from the git-go! She does not try to haul me to Yuma.
But, even though I tighten it as much as possible, it just doesn’t fit Ruby. In fact, it’s so loose she manages to climb out of it.
Luckily, Cassie heels as a matter of course. So I take her collar off her and put it on Ruby, who would take off for Yuma on her own if she got free for an instant.
Back at the Funny Farm, I happen to look up these Easy Walk harnesses on Amazon, by way of seeing what commenters have to say. And there, what should I find but that the things are going for $23, and one vendor is offering it for $17.99! Free shipping, one and all.
Well sh!t. I am royally irked.
I take the thing back and tell the manager the it’s too large. She says do I want an exchange or a refund. I say a refund, I guess, since I can get it for $17 at Amazon. Not looking even faintly surprised, she says, “We match prices.”
I think, Isn’t THAT sleazy? You’ll rip off your customers as long as they don’t wise up, hm? But since I’d like to have one of these things and not wait several days to get it, I exchange it for a size small.
Can you imagine? They know they’re gouging and they have the effrontery to, in effect, admit it by dropping their price to the lowest bid…but only if you’ve gone and searched it out.
Brought the “small” size home. Doesn’t fit Ruby: way, WAY too small. So now I’ll have to traipse back up there again to return it.
Y’know, I prefer to shop local. Given a choice between a locally owned retailer and some faceless mega-chain, I’ll buy things like this from the local store. And yeah, I’m willing to pay a couple of dollars more for the privilege, understanding how business works.
But not twice as much!
Gouging customers is standard operating procedure but at least they are willing to price match. I don’t think a lot of businesses were willing to do that before smartphones became ubiquitous. So score one for technology.
Yup! The only way to know without access to the Internet would be to drive around the city comparing prices.
I have a purebred lab, and he weighs around 120 lbs without being overweight. He loves to pull and at his weight it was beginning to cause me shoulder pain. I tried the easy walk harness but I could never get it to fit properly with the deep barrel chest that labs have.
I had moderate success with Kong Comfort Dog Harness that had the clip on the back above the front legs. With that harness, if he pulled it would just bring him up onto his hind legs. BUT the thing that I have had the best success with is a pinch collar. I only put it on him when we’re walking so that he doesn’t accidentally choke himself when we’re at home. He HATES getting pinched by prongs so it pretty much immediately stopped the problem.
I used a pinch collar on my German shepherd for quite some time — on the advice of her first trainer, who mostly trained K-9 dogs for the police and the feds. It was just marginally successful — probably she had so much hair it padded her neck from the prongs.
Later my vet referred me to a “dog behaviorist.” I thought this was ridiculous but went along with it, because Anna still wished more than anything to bring down a car by its oil pan, and she was fully capable of dragging me into the street if she really got going.
This guy did not believe in prong collars or slip-chain collars. He had me put her rolled leather collar on her, and he showed me how to use it.
To my astonishment, it worked. If you know how, it’s not necessary to use a cruel device to get the dog’s attention. There’s a trick to it — not easy to learn — but once you have it and you use it consistently, you can get even a very high-drive dog to heel, sit, and stay. For my purposes, that was all I needed…
These days, the only collar I’ll use is a martingale. You can give the dog a little jerk with it but not do much harm. Ruby gets a harness, though, because she seems to have a fragile windpipe — much rough stuff or dragging against a collar and she falls into a very scary spasmodic episode.
Have you tried a Halti? It’s the harness that goes on their head. My friend KJG used to swear by it for her Doberman. I used it with some success on the GerShep.
MAN…..I wouldn’t want to be in a retail business today. In another life, I owned a retail store for about 10 years and it was challenging. But now a days with rent, utilities, taxes, and the competition from Ebay, Amazon and the like it has to be near impossible to make a living. I honestly don’t know how a small business operator makes it. I wonder how much that dog harness actually costs from the distributor? With a price “swing” of $18 to $40 something seems out of the ordinary…
I think to make a go of it you’d have to be selling something that big-box stores and Amazon are not and cannot: tourist trap items, for example, or maybe antiques, or arts and crafts. If Amazon can sell it, you can’t compete…that’s all there is to it.
It was pretty obvious that the store manager knew that Amazon was selling their products for a lot less than the store was. So I think that means they were deliberately overpricing — gouging, is what I’d call that. Maybe they figure anyone who’s dumb enough to buy pet items in a brick-and-mortar store deserves what they get.
That seems like a counterproductive business plan. 😉
In this neck of woods…$20 a square foot is not uncommon plus CAM for storefront rent….So about $2K a month plus insurance, electric, internet exposure, advertising, taxes…You need to be selling a lot of “widgets” at a very high margin….Which may be why a cup of yogurt is $4-5 around here…
Yeah, that’s about what you’d pay around here, too. I guess people can afford to pay that, though, since they apparently buy enough to keep a yogurt shop in business. How they afford it escapes me…and, more to the point, WHY, when it’s so easy to ladle up a bowl of sugared yogurt for yourself.
The other thing that escapes me, in the keeping the wolf away from your business’s door department, is how people can afford to eat out ALL the time. That people must be eating out more than they eat home is the only way to explain the existence — and survival — of so many restaurants. In these parts, we have entire malls — big, sprawling malls — that house nothing but restaurants. And when you look at the kitchens in tract houses, you realize that few of them are made for anyone who knows how to cook a meal that doesn’t come out of a box or a freezer bag.
It’s SO expensive and wasteful to eat out — and by and large the food is so bad — that you marvel. Where do people come up with the money? Must charge it on the cards, I guess…and that would explain why so many Americans are in debt up to their schnozzes.
LOL! Arizona’s economy used to depend on people building houses so they could afford to buy houses. Now it consists of people waiting tables so they can afford to eat out.
I’m not so sure the woman was gouging as she’s probably had customers mention it already that it’s cheaper than amazon. Personally, I think amazon undercuts prices.
Here’s petsmarts price guarantee : We cannot match sale prices or prices advertised on Amazon, eBay, other auction sites or closeout/discount sites.
petsmart sells it for $27.49. so locally owned shop is a bit pricier.
The price at the manufacturer’s site is $27. That’s still $13 more less than the local store’s.
Petsmart overcharges liberally — I won’t shop there at all. Last time I looked, they charged $8 to $10 more than Whole Foods(!!) for the rolled, refrigerated dog food I used for the pooches when I’m in a pinch.
I don’t think the store manager is gouging, BTW. I think her employer is, though.