3-way!

It may sound dirty, but I swear it's not nearly that much fun! Have you ever tried to walk 3 small dogs at one time? It's not just a matter of each of them going their own way (which they do) they get excited when they see that one of the other's has spotted something they have not, and animatedly bound over to them. Then, they see the other one! And they bound over to them, and back and forth, all three at the same time round in circles. While you, the dog walker, is trying to untangle their little legs because they're all wrapped up in three leashes and the poor little things are whimpering because their fellows are seeing something they are not. Then, you add in your own legs, and suddenly your trying to untangle them and yourself, as you hop around on one foot trying to pull the other free with out losing your shoe, they spot a post! A post! all three at the same time bolt for the post! You hop along behind, crying "Stop, stop!" and you think things can't possibly get worse, since you finally lost the shoe and your standing on one leg which is now also tangled... but it does. They tangle the post up along with you and themselves, but at least now you have something to lean on. You patiently count to ten, because the crowd you have now gathered who is laughing uncontrollably, if somewhat apologetically, does not need to see you also lose your temper and scream profanities at three innocent little pugs.

So, I had this fantastic idea to buy a 3-way coupler, it would solve all my problems right? I had visions of one leash with 3 little pugs all walking along trapped into their own little stations. I bought a 12-inch coupler because my choices were 4-inch, 12-inch, and 24-inch. I thought the 4-inch would be too short and the 24-inch would be no better than 3 leashes. I clipped it onto the biggest dog first, then fought the littlest one for 10 minutes for the lead she had clamped onto. I then finally clipped the middle sized pug in the middle because I know the little one just has to be next to him. I finally wrestled the little one onto the third lead, but somehow she ended up in the middle, I picked her up and moved her back to the outside. She ended up in the middle again so thinking I must have screwed up I unclipped the last 2 and started over. But somehow, she ended up in the middle again where I was certain her tiny frame would be smushed, but, I gave up. So we started to walk and found a whole new set of problems!

They went in their circles still, round and round bounding over each other. The littlest one somehow never got smushed and dragged the other 2 everywhere she wanted to go. Also, loosing 2 leashes did not solve the tangling problem. Instead, now it just involved their necks and so they were choking and coughing along as they snarled me and them up in their rush to discover every pebble, bush and post they could find. When my ankle became tangled their was no play in the 12-inches to pull it free and I had to unclip one of the dogs to get it free, so now I was standing on one foot holding a 25 pound wiggling dog while trying to get the other 2 to stop running in circles long enough to unwrap us all.

Sigh, I think that I'm going to buy the 4-inch and see if that solves the problem.