Our test this month has been requested by many readers, so by popular request we are testing leads.

A good lead is an essential part of any dinosaur owners kit and there are any number of them on the market today, but which one is best for you? We hope that this article will help you choose the best for your pet.

BIG BUFFALO LEAD

The Big Buffalo Lead, the manufacturers claim, is ‘made from genuine buffalo hide and has a breaking strain of six tonnes, suitable for medium sized dinosaurs’. We have no doubts about any of these claims. The main part of this lead is a 12 foot length of very hefty woven hide with a good strong steel link at one end for connecting to your pets collar or harness. The other end has a rather complicated array of straps and buckles that form a shoulder harness for the owner, this it is claimed is so that you cannot accidentally let go of the lead should your pet decide to make a sudden dash off in an unexpected direction.

After a bit of practise the shoulder harness proved quite easy to get on and off and it did feel quite secure, we felt that some sort of snap connector might have been better than the buckles as it did take several minutes to get in or out of the harness, none the less, we felt that it was well made and on the whole well designed

The next step is to try it out in practise. For the test we borrowed a rather excitable young deinonychus called Molly. The first thing to do, as always when introducing a new bit of kit to your pet, is to let it have a good sniff at the item in question. Brian, one of our new testers approached Molly with the lead and allowed her to sniff at it, good practise. What was not good practise though was the fact that Brian had the other end of the lead strapped to his shoulder. Molly having sniffed at the lead decided two things, one, that the lead was made of genuine buffalo hide, and two, that it was food and promptly started to eat it. This would not have been much of a problem if Brian had not been securely strapped to the other end, or if the shoulder harness had quick release connectors instead of buckles.

You will be pleased to know that Brian is recovering well and he is due to have his artificial arm fitted in a couple of weeks. As to the lead, well, we are concerned that there should be a warning on the box that it is only suitable for herbivores, or perhaps something to disguise the smell of buffalo. Apart from this, we gave it a rating of seven out of ten.

MEGA-RETRACTOR LEAD

This dinosaur lead has no leather parts so we felt quite safe that we could avoid the problems of the previous test.

The Mega-Retractor Lead is a rather hi-tech and it must be said expensive dinosaur lead, but, does it work? At first sight it is very impressive, being made of polished stainless steel you can see why it costs so much!

The lead is contained in a large drum, a bit bigger than a large biscuit tin, which is attached to a chain link belt, this time with a very good quick release connector. Firstly you strap the chain link belt round your waist so that the drum is positioned on your hip, then you set the dial on the drum to the size of dinosaur you are using, then you unwind out the steel cable from the drum and attach it to your pets collar or harness, all very straight forward. You will notice that on the drum are two large buttons, the green one locks and releases the cable, that is, when you feel your pet has enough lead you press it and the cable locks, if you want to give him a bit more, press it again. The other button, the black one, retracts the cable back into the drum, this is why you must set the dial to the size of your pet. If you have it on a high setting with a small dinosaur the poor thing may be wrenched off his feet when you press the button, likewise if you have a large pet on a low setting and you press the button nothing will happen.

So on to the test, again with Molly. After allowing her to have a good sniff at it, no problems this time, so Harry, our new tester, strapped on the belt, set the dial to the correct setting, pulled out the cable and attached it to Mollys harness and off they went. According to Harry this test went very well, a press on the green button gave Molly more lead, another press and the lead locked, a press on the black button and she was pulled gently back to Harry, all most impressive.

We had planned to give the Mega-Retractor a massive nine out of ten on the strength of this test but, Harry, being so impressed with the lead, took it home to try on his own pet, a lexouisaurus called Mervin. (Lexouisaurus - much the same as a sterosaurus but with spikes instead of plates down the back and tail) Harry must have set the dial right up to maximum as Mervin is Quite a hefty beast, and given him plenty of slack on the lead. The witnesses say it looked as if Mervin was making a (slow) dash for a field of cabbages. We can only assume that Harry then pressed the black button but instead of Mervin being pulled back to Harry, Harry was catapulted towards Mervin, the doctors reckon he must have been doing about ninety miles an hour when he hit Mervins spiky back.

In the light of these developments we feel we can only give the Mega-Retractor four out of ten with a warning that you should not use it if your pet is much heavier than you are.

DINOHOOK

Our third test was to be the Dinohook, this comprises about eight feet of heavy chain with a large hook on the end, the idea being that you connect the other end to your pet and use the hook as a handle, then, should your pet get out of hand you simply hook the hook round a lamp post or tree or dig it into the ground and your pet is brought to a halt.

Unfortunately, we seem to have run out of testers willing to try this product so we will award it a nominal four out of ten, it would have been five but the end of the hook does look a bit sharp.