Choosing your mantrailing gloves
This blog investigates why we may need gloves for mantrailing and what sort of gloves best suit our needs.
Gloves typically perform three functions, warmth, protection and grip. Although having something to keep your fingers warm whilst trailing outside in the Welsh winter weather is always handy, it's the protection and grip side of things that's more relevant to mantrailing.
To identify what sort of gloves work best we need to have a look at why we need them and how we are using them.
An important component of mantrailing is that the dog is trailed whilst being held on a long line so having enough grip to keep hold of the line is essential. Mantrailing does however require more than just holding on to the end of the long line and letting the dog drag you to the trail layer.
The handler needs to be able to give the dog more line or take line depending on where they are trailing, a skill referred to as line handling. Our line handling needs to be smooth and steady, especially as we are letting the line out to give the dog more space to work, to keep the line being fed out smoothly we let it run through our hand using our fingers and thumb to control the speed.
As the line passes between the hand and fingers it will create friction, depending on the type of long line, how hard you are holding and how much the dog is pulling this friction can lead to friction burns on your hands.
Not only is friction burn painful, but it also causes people's confidence to drop while handling the long line. This in turn makes the line handling rough and jerky which can impact the dogs ability to trail effectively. So a good set of gloves will need to be able to withstand not just holding the line but having the line run over them smoothly.
We also need to be able to feel the line running through our hand so we can control it effectively. In addition we may want to be putting on or removing leads, longlines and harnesses while wearing the gloves at the start and end of trails.
So, from this information we know we are looking for a glove that is robust enough to protect our hands from friction burns, give us grip and control of the line whilst still allowing the line to move freely when needed and also allow us to maintain some dexterity to undo clips etc.
Fortunately, there's a few other sports that have some crossover requirements such as cycling, horse riding, climbing and sailing.
Horse riding gloves, although offer good protection from both line and the elements tend to be a little bulky and make adjusting clips etc difficult.
Cycling gloves are designed to grip the handlebars whilst allowing the rider to operate various controls and keeping most of their hands warm. To achieve this they are usually heavily padded on the palms and have most of the gloves fingers removed to allow them to use the full dexterity of their fingers.
This means the gloves are great for providing grip on the line and allowing the handler to easily operate clips, however the palms are designed to have the line running across them so may wear through quickly and offer limited protection to friction burn to the palm of the hand, and almost none at all to the fingers as they are mostly exposed.
Climbing and sailing gloves are both designed to handle ropes in all sorts of conditions whilst also allowing their respective users to be able to operate other pieces of equipment. This means the gloves are often reinforced with tougher along the palms to provide extra grip and act as wear strips.
They also offer more finger protection with some good full finger designs as well half finger (whereas cycle gloves are usually about a quarter) styles allowing you to be able to use your fingers and thumbs. Some of the sailing gloves are even mixed, with the little ring and middle fingers being full length and then the index and thumb with the tips removed.
In conclusion, gloves are an important piece of mantrailing kit, especially if you have a heavy puller, offering you control, confidence and comfort whilst on the trail. As with most things theres no one size fits all, this blog should give you all the information you need to choose your own gloves, we personally like these Musto sailing gloves with mixed finger lengths but they may not be the best solution for everyone.
