The Spare Lead That Lives in the Car Boot

Short answer: the cheapest lead we own lives in the car boot and it has saved more walks than the expensive ones. A spare means a forgotten lead, a broken clip or a wet one does not end the trip. Flat webbing, a metal clip and a mesh pouch have survived two Perth summers back there.

The park we use most is a forty-minute drive north of us, and we have made the whole trip with the harness on, the water bottle packed and the lead sitting on the kitchen bench. The first time it happened I drove to the servo on the corner, bought nothing useful and came home. The second time I opened the boot, found a cheap flat lead I had bought as a spare and forgotten about, and we had a normal walk. That lead has spent two summers in a car that lives outside, rained on and gritted with river sand. It is still the one I reach for when something goes missing.

How the spare lead started

I bought the spare because of a snapped clip, not because of a forgotten lead. Wally's lead clip failed on a Sunday morning about a kilometre from home, and I walked him back holding his collar with one hand. After that I bought a second lead and left it in the car, mostly so the car kit could stand on its own. The useful part was not the quality, it was that the lead was already there, so no trip depended on me remembering one item from the kitchen. It also fixed wet weather. When we come back from the river in July with two soaked dogs, the wet lead stays in the car instead of dripping through the apartment.

What a car does to a lead

A car is a hard place to store soft gear. On a hot day the inside of a parked car gets far hotter than the air outside, and a boot under a rear window is the worst spot for rubber and plastic. Plastic clips go stiff and then brittle, metal starts to show surface rust, and webbing softens and fades. Sand works its way into swivel joints and never quite comes out, which is how a lead starts to feel gritty when a dog pulls, and salt from the beach does the same thing faster. Perth also gives you weeks where the temperature barely drops overnight, so a damp lead left coiled in a sealed bag stays damp for days. What survives is not the fanciest lead. It is the one with the fewest moving parts and the least padding to hold water.

What to look for in a boot lead

Flat nylon webbing is what I look for first. It dries fast, it does not hold grit the way a padded handle does, and 20 mm or 25 mm width is comfortable to hold when a dog leans on it. A solid metal clip is worth more than a plastic one when the lead lives in heat, and a simple swivel is easier to rinse than a complicated joint. I avoid foam or fleece handles in the car, because that is where damp lives, and I avoid anything with a spring mechanism, because that is a part which can fail quietly. Length matters too: 1.2 metres to 1.5 metres suits a footpath or a car park. Before I bought ours I went back through the dog leads notes we already had, mostly to check I was not repeating a material that had failed on us once.

• Buy a plain spare lead before you need one, not after.
• Choose flat webbing and a metal clip over padded handles.
• Keep the boot lead in a mesh pouch, not a sealed bag.
• Rinse sand and salt off, then dry it fully before storing.
• Check the clip and the stitching every few months.

Storing it so it lasts

In the boot I use a mesh pouch with a plastic carabiner, clipped to a hook on the side wall. Mesh means the lead gets air, and a hook means it is not coiled around something that stays wet. If the lead comes back from the beach wet or sandy, I rinse it in the laundry sink, shake it out and hang it over the laundry door overnight, then put it back in the car the next morning. The pouch holds the lead, a spare roll of bags and a folded towel. Every few months I look at the stitching near the clip and the handle, and work the clip a few times with my thumb. A sealed plastic bag is the one storage choice I would avoid, because it holds moisture against the webbing.

When to retire a lead

A lead is done when the stitching at the clip starts to come away, when the clip no longer springs closed on its own, or when you can see rust working into the metal. Frayed webbing near the handle is another sign, and so is a lead that has gone stiff and slick. None of that is fixed with tape. I keep a second spare in the laundry for the dogs at home, so there is never a moment where the only lead in the house is a questionable one. Two leads per dog sounds excessive until you have stood halfway to the car with one in hand and no idea where the other went. If your dog is a strong puller, ask your vet or a trainer about hardware before trusting a cheap lead near a road.

What lives in the boot now

The car kit is a mesh pouch clipped to the side of the boot, holding one flat webbing lead, a spare collar, a roll of bags and a small towel. There is a second spare in the laundry, and the good leads hang inside. What I have stopped doing is trying to keep one perfect lead in every location. The cheap lead in the boot is not the one I would take to a training class and not the one I would hand to someone walking Nell for the first time. It is the one that means a forgotten lead does not end a walk, which is a different job. If you drive to your walks, that is worth the small cost.

Frequently Asked Questions