# Signature K-9



## jim caraway (Jul 31, 2012)

I bought an agitation lead from these guys....beautiful leather, but...snap blew up during obedience work...there goes doggie and leash in my hand. I dont like to be a whiner but, please...what if it had happened during civil work? Not happy


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## Guest (Dec 1, 2008)

Have you taken it up with them or asked them? Im sure they would make it right. I've known Matt for some time and he is good people! Give him a call.


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## jim caraway (Jul 31, 2012)

thats good to hear...I love the leather...i did message them from their website and no response


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## rick smith (Dec 31, 2010)

not all snap hooks are created equal 

3-4 years ago i switched to the swivel carabiner type and most of my leads now have those on in marine grade stainless and for me they can be slapped on a D-ring one handed very quickly with heavy gloves on if it is cold
- but there are some cheesy versions of those out there too


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## mike suttle (Feb 19, 2008)

I co-owed Signature K-9 for several years, Matt is a very close friend of mine. He is hard to reach because he is extremely busy, but he will for sure send you a new leash, no questions asked. He sells thousands of leashes per year and while they assemble the leather to the snap, they obviously dont manufacture the snap itself. They use very high quality snaps, but it sounds like they got a defective snap from the manufacturer, this would have been impossible to notice from a visual inspection so don't feel like they are using poor quality equipment, in fact in most cases they use equipment and hardwear that is grosly over-engineered for its intended application. Feel free to contact me privately and I will give you Matt's personal cell phone, if that doesnt work for you then I will call him myself and help you out. Trust me, he will make it right for sure.


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## Jim Leon (Jan 21, 2010)

Signature sells a great leather tug. It's about 12" long, advertised as Heavy Leather Tug Toy.
Only problem is the leather is dyed dark red. When the dog gets slobber on it the dye comes off all over handlers clothing.
Since you have influence at Signature, could you ask them if they could request their supplier to not put dye on these tugs?


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## Bart Karmich (Jul 16, 2010)

Mike's post addresses the issue here quite well. I would just add that for any manufacturer, if the snap is stainless steel or cast bronze than it is quite reasonable to believe they attempted to choose a good quality snap but could have received a defective one from the manufacturer. But if the snap is plated zinc then it is trash and the whole thing is a rip-off. I doubt Signature would sell zinc snaps but that is exactly what you will get if you go to Petco, Petsmart or a lot of feed stores. A good hardware store will have choices. Mine has zinc, cast bronze and stainless steel. But even the bronze and stainless steel are made in Malaysia. I imagine the sigma in manufacturing leaves some of the product wanting. You just can't expect precision manufacturing and quality control from suppliers like these. You could use climbing, aircraft or lifting gear instead but the cost will be substantially higher. I used rated lifting shackles for tie-out in the past. They're not as light as the climbing gear but they can be easier to source depending on your locale.


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## Joby Becker (Dec 13, 2009)

Bart Karmich said:


> Mike's post addresses the issue here quite well. I would just add that for any manufacturer, if the snap is stainless steel or cast bronze than it is quite reasonable to believe they attempted to choose a good quality snap but could have received a defective one from the manufacturer. But if the snap is plated zinc then it is trash and the whole thing is a rip-off. I doubt Signature would sell zinc snaps but that is exactly what you will get if you go to Petco, Petsmart or a lot of feed stores. A good hardware store will have choices. Mine has zinc, cast bronze and stainless steel. But even the bronze and stainless steel are made in Malaysia. I imagine the sigma in manufacturing leaves some of the product wanting. You just can't expect precision manufacturing and quality control from suppliers like these. You could use climbing, aircraft or lifting gear instead but the cost will be substantially higher. I used rated lifting shackles for tie-out in the past. They're not as light as the climbing gear but they can be easier to source depending on your locale.


Bronze? or Brass????


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## Karen Havins (Apr 22, 2012)

In this case it was bronze. 
The worrisome thing is Jim's point that this was SOLD as an agitation leash. 
Testing really needs to be done on the snaps to make sure they ARE actually agitation quality. This leash in OB may have lasted, though I will admit the dog didn't pull all that hard, but it did pull and it broke. In looking at the snap where it came right out of the swivel, it's damn near paper thin at that point. He saw no difference in the other leash he bought. 
I think that he got in touch with the gentleman and he's replacing it with a different leash for now.


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## Joby Becker (Dec 13, 2009)

Karen Havins said:


> In this case it was bronze.
> The worrisome thing is Jim's point that this was SOLD as an agitation leash.
> Testing really needs to be done on the snaps to make sure they ARE actually agitation quality. This leash in OB may have lasted, though I will admit the dog didn't pull all that hard, but it did pull and it broke. In looking at the snap where it came right out of the swivel, it's damn near paper thin at that point. He saw no difference in the other leash he bought.
> I think that he got in touch with the gentleman and he's replacing it with a different leash for now.


is this the first time you guys ever had a piece of equipment break? it does happen you know, from time to time...  How would you test every single snap? what would be the "test" to ensure it is agitation quality, if you made them?


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## Karen Havins (Apr 22, 2012)

having grown up with brass and show horses as a daily part of my life, I can say that I have never seen paperthin brass before that broke like this. I have seen brass tear a few times, but it's rare. 
ALL of the horse equipment is brass. 

Of course, things break...but this isn't a big deal to other dog folks because he was lucky enough for this to happen when he wasn't doing actual agitation. 
What would your reaction would be if he was doing civil work with his dog and it broke? 
That will land someone in the hospital. I would have used a supplier that would be more expensive, but has years of proven success in the field. NOT saying that those would ever break either, but at first glance, they aren't good looking snaps. 

Either way, the man made it right and in the future, lets hope that this was just a fluke.


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## Karen Havins (Apr 22, 2012)

Oh, and the test? 
Simple, stress and strength test!


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## Joby Becker (Dec 13, 2009)

Karen Havins said:


> Oh, and the test?
> Simple, stress and strength test!


every single snap?


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## Chris McDonald (May 29, 2008)

Brass pretty reliable but it is more likely to fail than stainless. Zinc is what almost all dog equipment is made from, it is cheap, real cheap but has a low break point and high failure rating of breaking before it hits that point. 
My limited understanding is that zinc is way more likely to have air bubbles in them that cannot be seen. 
Brass can also get bubbles but it much less likely.
I think they can both have the metal content messed with to save a penny and make them more unreliable. I have seen many 100 percent brass products that were actually zinc with some type of brass plating. 
 Stainless is what you need to use but is hard to find on dog equipment and is not cheap. 316 stainless is what is referred to as marine grade. I am more concerned about the hardware being stainless than the quality of the material used to make the leads or collars. 
The cost differences are big it was something like 
316 costs a several dollars per snap 
Brass might be a dollar
Zinc is like a nickel 

I couldn’t find what I wanted so I had a few hundred leads made a few years ago with the products I wanted. I have towed trucks that were stuck out with them. 
It would be interesting to see a picture of where it failed. It would also be interesting to break or cut the clip in half to see if it was solid brass. 
If it is anything other than what Signiture K9 says it would be very unlikely that Signature K9 even knew? And im sure they would be interested to get back to their suppliers. That being said you really should have got in touch with them before making a post complaining about a product. Like everyone said they will take care of it and we all know things break 
I think you can x-ray if you want to test ensure they are solid, I mean if you really want to


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## Karen Havins (Apr 22, 2012)

Jim can speak for himself of course, but I believe he did and posted when there was no response forthcoming. 
Have any of those leashes anymore? lol


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## mike suttle (Feb 19, 2008)

For whatever it's worth, I have one of EVERY single leash that Signature K-9 sells, two or three of many of them. (or at least one of every leash they sold up to a few years ago when I left there) and while some are over 15 years old, not one has failed in any way. They buy snaps by the thousands and it would be impossible to do any type of strength testing with each snap. They do random QA testing of all of their hardware, just as the snap manufacturer does, but that does not mean that there can't be a defect in the process here and there, it can happen. Like I said, I probably have 50 leashes in total in all different sizes and none of them have ever failed me. We train and use them everyday, in fact my sore old body worked 32 dogs here Wednesday alone, so we would see a quality problem if there were one.


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## Chris McDonald (May 29, 2008)

Karen Havins said:


> Jim can speak for himself of course, but I believe he did and posted when there was no response forthcoming.
> Have any of those leashes anymore? lol


 
I couldn’t imagine they won’t take good care of him. 
PM me your address. I’ll look and see what I have left. They were nothing fancy but they were strong. 
And remind me if you don’t here from me, I don’t remember nothing!


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