A woman walking her dog on a lead along a sunlit forest trail

The Dog Lead That Used to Be a Climbing Rope

Abloke at a market picked up one of my belts, turned it over in his hands, and said "could you make this for my dog?"

I said aye. I had no idea how. But I said aye.

That is pretty much how every product here starts. Somebody asks. I go home and make a mess of it for a few weeks. Eventually something works.

The dog lead took longer than most.

Why a retired climbing rope makes a very good dog lead

Here is the thing most folk do not know. A climbing rope gets retired after about five to ten years, even when it looks absolutely fine. The core wears out where you cannot see it. So the wall pulls it off the wall and it becomes waste.

But "not safe to catch a falling human" and "not safe to hold a labrador" are two very different bars.

A rope that is past its climbing life is still stronger than anything you will find hanging in a pet shop. It has a bit of stretch in it, which takes the jolt out when your dog spots a squirrel. It is soft in the hand and does not burn your palm. It gets wet, it dries, it does not care.

That is not clever marketing. That is just what nylon rope does.

The bit where I got it wrong

First lead I made was too short. Second one was too stiff. Third one had a handle loop that sat wrong in your fist and rubbed after ten minutes.

I only found that out because I walked with them. Not tested in the workshop. Tested in the rain on a hill in Aberdeen with a dog that pulls.

The version I sell now has a proper spliced handle, a solid clip, and enough length that you are not doing the awkward arm-out shuffle on a narrow path. It costs £24. It will outlast three of the nylon ones from a big-box store, and when it finally does die it will not have been the reason a new rope got made.

From the wall to the walkies 5 to 10 years, then a rope is retired even if it looks fine UK climbing walls save it instead of binning it Cut, spliced and finished by hand in Aberdeen £24 dog lead with a story Nylon rope takes hundreds of years to break down. One rope costs about 46 kg of CO2 to make. In January 2026 alone we kept over 5 km of it out of landfill. Make Waste Useful.

Gear with a story beats gear with a barcode

Every lead I make comes from a rope that did a job. Somebody trusted it with their life at a wall somewhere in the UK. Then it got tired, and instead of going in a skip it came to a shed in Aberdeen and got a second job holding onto a very daft spaniel.

I like that. It is the same reason I make the recycled climbing rope belts and the gifts for climbers. Same rope, different second life.

And if you want the honest sales pitch, here it is. You are going to buy a dog lead at some point anyway. You can buy one that was made new, shipped across the world, and will be in a bin in eighteen months. Or you can buy one that already existed, already saved somebody, and is made by a bloke you can actually email.

Less waste. More miles.

Give your dog a rope with a past

Handmade in Aberdeen from retired climbing rope. £24, and every quid goes to a real person.

Shop the dog lead

If you are not sure on colour, or you want it for somebody else and cannot ask without ruining the surprise, a Forma gift card starts at £10 and lets them pick.

And if you work at a climbing wall and you have a pile of retired rope sitting in a store cupboard, please get in touch. I will take the lot.

Stay classy and remember,
Make Waste Useful.

George

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