Dog leads should not be wrapped around their owner’s wrists, hands or fingers and neither should they hook their fingers under their dog’s collar. This is the advice of veterinary surgeons in the UK and it has been offered to dog owners because incorrect usage of leads results in dog owners suffering a substantial number of serious injuries according to the British Society for the Surgery of the Hand.
In one hospital in the UK, the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust, 30 serious hand injury were caused by the misuse of dog leads in one year alone.
The injuries included friction burns, dislocations, lacerations and fractures. You can see, therefore, that the injuries are not always superficial and some injuries can take up to 12 months to resolve.
With respect to big dogs, veterinary surgeons recommend that owners keep them on a short lead to prevent the dog from getting up speed. This is a preventative step and keeps the dog under better control.
Perhaps the most common injury is a spiral fracture to one or more of the bones of a finger or fingers. This is caused by incorrect handling of the dog collar and often requires surgery to fix.
My thanks to the Independent newspaper’s website
