FLEXI-ALTERNATIVES:
- Rope
- Chain
- Obedience School
Seems simple enough. You hold onto the business end of the Flexi Classic, clip the other to your dog’s collar, and the two of you are good to go, you at your speed, Ajax at his. What puts the flex in the Flexi Classic is its retractable leash, or “lead,” a cable that plays out from the handle as Ajax trots away and rewinds (without any help from you) when he comes back. Your walk together becomes a series of partings and remeetings, and if Ajax knows his John Donne he’s likely to shoot you a look that says,
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
That’s the concept, anyway: you at the center of your dog’s world, he, your little Magellan, and the Flexi Classic, a spring-loaded reminder of the tie that binds.
In practice, though, this scheme, this very Order of Things, is likely to fall apart.
To read the rest of this piece, please purchase this issue
of the Believer online or at your local bookseller. |
—Jeff Steinbrink
