An Idea

Recently I had my dog sparky out for a walk with a brand new retractable leash. The first couple walks were great! He had the freedom to roam around and I didn’t get dragged into the weeds and get burrs all over my socks. 😞

But the other day he saw a squirrel and bolted after it. I had no option but to press the “Brake” button on the leash. YELP! Sparky was not happy. As soon as I pressed the button the leash just stopped. 😮

Sparky jerked to a stop, the leash almost got yanked out of my hand. 😲 I immediately wondered what I and the inventors of the leash were thinking. Of course a leash like this should have a variable brake NOT a STOP BUTTON!

Any car or bicycle or anything else where you can move at speed has a brake where you can vary how fast you slow down. Thus allowing you to stop smoothly, gently and safely.

As soon as I got home I looked up retractable leashes with variable brakes. Nothing. My engineering degree brain started kicking into high gear. Why wasn’t there a product like this already, could I design one? Could I realize my child hood dream of being an inventor who invented something to make peoples lives safer and better?

With 3D printing allowing prototypes to be made easily and crowd funding available to help fund this new invention DEEP BREATH I took the plunge! Lets see what we can do! 😆

***UPDATE***

It’s Official - We are the FIRST

After some additional meetings with a patent lawyer and working on an initial design concept. They have confirmed that there are no patents for a retractable pet leash with a variable brake.

So HERE WE GO, lots of work ahead, but I am so pumped!