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Having a well-designed and properly fitting harness is essential for both training and ensuring the safety of your dog. 2 Hounds Design offers high-quality harnesses that allow for easy redirection during training and distribute any force across the chest instead of the neck. When teaching your dog leash manners or loose leash walking, the goal is to avoid putting any force on their neck. However, there may be instances where your dog pulls due to excitement or interest in something. With a well-designed harness, these situations can be more manageable and enjoyable for both you and your pup.
After extensive testing and research, we have discovered the ultimate harness for our furry friends: the Freedom Harness by 2 Hounds Design. We have spent countless hours walking our dogs and trying out different harnesses, and this one has proven to be the clear winner. Not only is it comfortable for our dogs, but it also provides us with peace of mind knowing that they are secure and safe during our walks. If you’re looking for a reliable and top-notch harness, we highly recommend the Freedom Harness by 2 Hounds Design.
Overview of the Freedom Harness
The first thing you’ll notice with the Freedom Harness for dogs is the harness has both a front and a rear clip point for a leash. Both have their uses and we find certain situations are easier to manage when you have the option of swapping between both points.
For example, on normal walks, the front clip is fantastic for training and reinforcing loose leash walking, but we like the rear clip for exploring or if your pup doesn’t have any issues walking with a loose leash. 2 Hounds Design also makes a leash, the 2 Hounds Euro Leash, that has two clips to attach to your harness, which is a great idea to make walking your dog easier, but it does take some getting used to!
The rear clip is attached to what 2 Hounds Design refers to as a “control loop”. It’s essentially a built-in martingale collar for a harness. When used correctly, it can also help deter pulling for a more enjoyable walking experience. As with most well-designed harnesses, the pressure from this gets applied to your dog’s chest, not neck, which helps minimize the chance of neck-related injuries from pulling or pressure.
The rear portion of the harness behind your dog’s front legs is lined with a velvet strap, which we think is a great feature. It helps if you have a dog who goes on longer walks or has sensitive skin not chafe or get rubbed by the straps. This velvet strap is a great addition by 2 Hounds Design to reduce one of the most common complaints about harnesses.
Two different widths are available, 5/8 in and 1 in. All of our experience has been with the 1 in variants since both of our pups are over 40 lbs. We find the larger width helps prevent the harness from digging into your dog’s ribs.
About 2 Hounds Design
2 Hounds Design is a company based in North Carolina that specializes in collars, leashes, and the freedom harness for dogs. They put a high emphasis on the quality of the products they produce and prioritize getting materials from the US. So if you’re looking for a dog harness made in the USA, you’re looking at the right spot. 2 Hounds Design also donates products & funds to many different rescue-type organizations, so you can feel even better about your harness!
Chewy is our preferred place to buy pet supplies, if at all possible, for the same reason we like 2 Hounds Design. Their customer service is easy to get ahold of, accommodating, and generally just pleasant to deal with.
Our experience with the 2 Hounds Design Freedom harness
Enough with the background information. Here are our thoughts on the Freedom Harness by 2 Hounds Design!
Materials & design
One of the design features we always look for in a harness is a good fail-safe design. 2 Hounds Design designed their harness so the front loop (collar/shoulder region) has no points that can open, which is preferred because there is always a chance that clips or buckles can unclip or break. This design allows you to still retain control of your dog even if both clips somehow open at the same time. This, combined with the martingale-style collar portion of the harness is by far one of the safest designs for a harness we’ve encountered.
The front loop sits lower than a typical collar would which puts any leash pressure on the broad portion of your dog’s chest. As a result of this design, you get a wider collar portion of the harness. In our experience, the wider collar portion makes most pups much more willing to put on a harness than one with a smaller opening for their head.
The location of the clips (rear loop only) means your dog just has to stand there for the harness to be slipped over their head without any stepping in or picking up feet while they try to run away from you. Once it’s on their shoulders, you simply clip the two points behind their front legs on the rear loop. The result is a harness that most dogs are more willing to wear and that’s easier for your pup to get acclimated to.
If you need some help with harness training your dog, check out our guide on harness training the easy way.
The materials used by 2 Hounds Design in their harness are also excellent. The main portion of the harness is a towing-strength webbing capable of pulling cars, and all their hardware is stainless steel, which means it’s rust-proof and strong. As we mentioned, the rear strap is velvet-lined, which is much more pleasant for larger dogs or dogs that have sensitive skin. We use this harness with Prim because it’s one of the only two we’ve found that doesn’t irritate her ribs or armpits at all.
Durability
Another feature we value in a harness is durability.
We’re very confident in the durability of the 2 Hounds Design harness. We’ve been using a Freedom harness with Prim for over four years and haven’t had any issues at all, which is more impressive since Prim likes to walk through things instead of around them.
We’ve even been washing ours in the laundry machine periodically, even though that’s not recommended, and it hasn’t had any issues. You can see from our photos, Prim’s harness looks bright and durable even with four years of use! With this harness, you don’t have to worry about durability.
Fitment
It doesn’t matter how great your harness is if it doesn’t fit correctly! Lucky for us, 2 Hounds Design makes it straightforward. To start, they have an easy-to-read dog harness sizing chart in the product listing for how to accurately measure your dog. After you get this one measurement, head over to their size table and it shows you the recommended width and harness size along with typical weight and breeds in that range, just to double-check your result. That’s it!
To customize the fit of the harness for your pup, there are four different adjustment points to fit any size dog. They walk you through the process with another great infographic for this, as well.
If you accidentally order the wrong size, Chewy and Amazon both have generous return policies.
Appearance
2 Hounds Design knocked it out of the park with the presentation of the Freedom harness. They have different color variations for most major seasonal events as well as unique themes for cute dog harnesses. Some of our favorites are the fall-themed ones, Twilight Glow, and the one Primmie sports most days, 1980s Freedom. We love the spunky and bright patterns! If you’re looking for something more traditional, they offer multiple solid color harnesses as well.
Honestly, there are so many options, that you’re sure to find something that matches your pup’s personality when selecting a harness!
Value
Our favorite part about the 2 Hounds Design Freedom Harness? It’s not expensive! For $32 dollars or so, you get a fantastic harness that’s well-constructed and sure to last you and your furry friend a lifetime. Some harnesses are cheaper, but most of the ones we’ve tried leave a lot to be desired concerning quality. With the 2 Hounds Design Freedom Harness, you won’t have to worry about your dog’s comfort or safety, and your pup will have more fun on their walks!
If you purchase the freedom harness from Chewy, it comes with the 2 Hounds Design Freedom no-pull dog harness & leash for about $42. The leash is a euro leash, which has 2 different clip points and can be extremely helpful when training your dog to walk with a loose leash. Here’s the same harness and leash bundle on Amazon.
Where to buy
Our recommended place to buy the Freedom harness from is Chewy. We could go on and on about them, but we’ll try to keep it short. They are honestly pleasant to interact with and are sincerely focused on customer service. One time they even sent us paintings of some of our pets that had profiles on our account. We were shocked, to put it mildly. Their prices are also great and their sales are excellent. Their return policy is one of the best we’ve come across by far, which is especially important with a harness. Despite checking multiple times, we ordered the wrong size harness the first time (Prim was on the border of two different sizes).
Chewy is our favorite place to order pet supplies from and one of our favorite places to shop overall. You can get a Freedom harness and leash for less than $50. Check out the Freedom Harness at Chewy. Both you and your pup will love it!
Conclusion
Whether you buy the 2 Hounds Design Freedom harness from Chewy or from Amazon, we think you’ll love the harness as much as we do! It’s one of only two harnesses that we use currently for our pups and is Prim’s preferred harness. Our favorite features are the fail-safe design, its durability, and the velvet-lined rear strap.
When you purchase the freedom harness, you can be sure you’re getting a high-quality harness that will last you a lifetime.
Have a different favorite harness or love your Freedom harness? Share photos of your favorite harnesses (and dogs!) with us on Instagram by tagging @therulybully.
Have fun!
