[Knute]

Its the time of year when the daylight hours are quickly diminishing in the Northern Hemisphere. Here in Southern China, dark o'clock arrives at 18:00 (6:00 pm).

When I get home from work and complete the daily quick tasks and after feeding Shadow, it is time for a walk in the dark. This is a very busy time for commuters. Sidewalks are full of people on cell phones, delivery scooters, motorcycle taxi, hoverboards, bicycles, pedestrians and all are generally oblivious to their surroundings. We have another walk in the dark around 23:00 (11:00 pm) before lights out.

Shadow has a salt & pepper coat and is only 12 inches tall. He is hard to see in the dark and is short. Many times people don't see me, I stand at 69 inches. Sidewalks are always busy. Yes, I have tried walking in an area that is not busy, but this is a suburb of roughly 2+ million people. Everywhere is busy. I have even shifted our walk time to be a bit later, unfortunately this resulted in potty accidents.

Just last night I was clipped by a delivery scooter, not bad injury, but resulted in a bruised forearm. The delivery scooter only drive as fast as possible, they are paid based on delivery count. If the scooter would have been on my other side, he would have tangled with the leash to pull Shadow and I into a more severe situation

I am considering purchasing an LED collar and LED leash. Been surfing on Amazon.....many options.... Most have 3 modes, steady, quick & slow flash. I believe this combination would help with visibility, especially with the flashing modes. Need to use LED because many times these taxi & scooter do not use headlights, so reflective is not functional.

My question: Does anyone use a similar combination of LED collar and LED leash? If so, any recommendation?

 

[DaySleepers]

We use:

Reflective vests on dogs and humans
A clip-on LED on each dog (stick to red if you're walking somewhere very dark, messes with your night vision less)
Leashes with reflective stitching/stripes
(Occasionally) head lamps

I do like the idea of an LED collar/harness and lead though. Sounds like they'd be a reasonable solution in your situation with traffic concerns, and I've known friends who were very satisfied with such products. I admit I don't like putting the LEDs we use in flashing mode because I find it annoying and distracting - and it can make it harder for me to actually see what my dog is doing - but safety is priority with night walks for sure. Frodo especially is practically invisible at night without gear on, so I do like that the bright yellow reflective vest provides extra contrast even when it's not actively reflecting light.

 

[Knute]

DS. LOL....yes, annoying and distracting will get the attention.

I'd rather use reflective because then I wouldn't need to be concerned about battery charge. But, when the drivers run without lights.........reflective is useless.

 

[DaySleepers]

Yeah, definitely a cultural difference. Up here reflective is THE night safety thing. Like I said, though, I do like that the reflective vest is bright yellow and makes my dark brown dog stand out a little better at night, even when it's not actively reflecting. Not as big a difference with our red boy.

There's some cheap tube LED collars that you can cut to size available over here. Relatively inexpensive way to try it out, perhaps? They're not designed to hook a leash up to, just literally a tube of lights to slap on for better visibility, something like this: