I carry a light on evening walks. A headlamp, or my phone, or one of those clip-on things — so a car coming up behind us sees me.
It took me longer than it should have to notice the obvious part. Tootsie is five feet away from that light. Whatever I’m carrying lights me. It does almost nothing for her.
Why I recommend it
The NiteDog is a five-foot leash that lights up along its whole length, and charges over USB.
That length matters more than I expected. A collar light is a dot. A lit leash is a line — it shows the whole span between me and her, which happens to be exactly the space a car or a bike needs to not drive through.
I saw it at Switchback, and it has been game-changing at night. Tootsie and I take an evening stroll before bed and visibility is the thing we pay attention to. In a campground, where it gets properly dark and there are no streetlights at all, this is the difference between hoping she can be seen and knowing she can.
Missy’s Honest Take
There are a lot of colors, which I liked more than I expected to.
The real cost isn’t the leash, it’s one more thing to charge. So much of Tootsie’s gear is rechargeable now that I keep a power strip by the door to make sure we’re always charged and ready to go. That isn’t a complaint about this leash — it’s what owning rechargeable safety gear turns into. A dead light is not a safety device.
What you’ll need
A USB charger, and somewhere to keep it. Mine is that power strip by the door, and honestly that one habit is what makes the leash work.
It’s five feet, which is a walking length rather than a roaming one. If you want your dog further out than that, the Ruffwear Roamer is the one to look at instead — though it doesn’t light up, so on a dark walk you’d want a collar light with it.
One more thing
The last walk of the day is the one I’d defend hardest. It’s dark and slow and there’s nowhere to be. Whatever the day was, it ends outside.
I just want to be able to see her while it does.
Get this gear
The NiteDog is for anyone who walks a dog after dark — a campground with no lights, or a street with cars on it. If your walks are all in daylight, you don’t need it.
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