Why Does My Dog Need A Harness At The Bark?

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While dogs look so adorable in a little harnesses, it's not just a fashion statement here at The Bark. It's a huge part of our safety protocols designed to keep your dog and our staff safe. If your dog has been walking on a normal collar, this might seem unnecessary, but we have some very good reasons why they improve safety here at The Bark.

1. It reduces the risk of choking and neck related injuries.

Tags on collars can easily get caught on each other or on fencing or play equipment. Dogs can also unintentionally hurt each other by pulling on other collars in the playgroups.

Dog with harness

Every year in the US there are an average of 26,000 injuries and deaths related to our precious dogs wearing collars around their necks. We don't want a single one of those to happen here at The Bark. While we absolutely support you walking your dog however you choose to when you're coming into the building, once dogs are entering a play space we don't want anything around their necks.

2. It gives us a safe way to separate and move dogs around when we need to.

Sometimes dogs become overstimulated, scared, or simply don't know that they are playing too rough with others. While owners are responsible for watching their dogs behavior at The Bark, our Bark Rangers are also in the play spaces. They have a very important job to maintain safety and notice problems before they escalate. Sometimes all it takes is walking away from a situation for a dog to calm down.

Smiling dog with harness

Our rangers will gently grab a dog's harness to walk them away from sticky situations. In the event that dog behavior could escalate into a dog fight, it's important to separate the dogs quickly and efficiently so no one gets hurt. The last place you want to try to grab a dog during a fight is around the neck. A body harness allows our staff to get ahold of the dogs around the waist instead.

We really value all the great benefits of harnesses in our playgroups and hope you do too! If you are without a body harness for your visit, we have harness rentals available and we have harnesses for purchase in our pet store. We can't wait to bark with you!