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Leerburg's Amish Leather Products

By Ed Frawley

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Since 1990, Leerburg has built a reputation for selling the finest leather dog leashes, the finest leather harnesses, and the finest leather dog collars and police muzzles in the world.

Our Leerburg leather products are strong enough to last a lifetime but soft enough to be comfortable right out of the box. If you go to PetSmart or one of the dog food warehouses and feel their leather products, you will find that their leather is thin and stiff. The leather in our dog leashes is thick, pliable, and soft. It's comfortable on your hands and results in better training for your dog.

There are two reasons that our leather dog training products are as good as they are:

The leather we use
The Amish harness makers who put our products together

Where we get our leather and how it is tanned is our trade secret.

The Leather Tanning Company

We order 60 to 70 sides of beef leather at one time. These sides come out of Canada where some of the beef hides are thicker. We need this thicker leather for our 6-foot dog leashes.

The leather is shipped to the tanning company here in the United States where it's processed. The reason our leather is so soft is because of the way it is tanned. Our tanner uses a mixture of tallow and oils that other tanners don't use. While this is important, the key to why the leather is soft is how the hides are dried.

Once the hides have been oiled, they are stretched on frames and put in a large room to air dry. This process takes up to 3 weeks. Other tanners run their hides through big, heated dryers where their hides dry in a day or two.

This is the reason the leather is as soft as it is. When leather goes through the commercial dryers, it gets too dry which results in the leather getting stiff. That's why the PetSmart leather leashes are brittle or stiff.

leather tanning company — Hides for processing

The Amish

Certain areas of Wisconsin have large Amish communities. Over the past 25 years, I have developed a relationship with an Amish harness maker, Amos, who creates all of my leather products.

Amos and his sons are perfectionists. They take pride in what they do and appreciate the fact that I give them all of my leather business. While they are farmers and work the land, they use the Leerburg leatherwork to help with their cash flow.

In the beginning, they used to make horse harnesses and raised chickens that were sold in Chicago. As time passed and our business grew, they stopped building these horse harnesses and they sold their chicken business to a neighbor. Now they only farm and make Leerburg dog training products.

The quality of Amos's workmanship has resulted in our reputation for the finest leather leashes in the world. When I got to Europe to film some of my training DVDs, my dog training friends over there always ask me to bring them a supply of our Leerburg Leashes.

I have a couple of Amos' leashes that are over 20 years old. They are as strong as the day I got them and as pliable as a wet noodle. If you buy a Leerburg leash and take care of it (don't leave it out in the rain) it will last for many years.

I would include a photo of myself and Amos but the Amish do not allow posed photos. Amos and I have discussed this. He knows people snap photos of them without asking and there is nothing they can do about this but he asked that I not take his picture.

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About Author

Ed Frawley

Ed Frawley is the founder of Leerburg. He has been training dogs since the 1950s. For 30 years, Ed bred working bloodline German Shepherds and has produced over 350 litters. During this time, Ed began recording dog training videos and soon grew an interest in police service dogs. His narcotic dogs have been involved in over 1,000 narcotics searches resulting in hundreds of arrests in the state of Wisconsin. Ed now solely focuses on producing dog training courses with renowned dog trainers nationwide. If you want to learn more about Ed, read about his history here.