When we started the Canuzzo project we aimed to create a great harness , so besides our own vision and experience we wanted to get an opinion from someone very knowledgeable. While we were finalizing the design of the Canuzzo harness we decided to visit our dear teacher and mentor Turid Rugaas.
With over 50 years of experience as a dog trainer, Turid is a world-renowned professional and author of "On Talking Terms of Dogs: Calming Signals". Turid's teachings and philosophy has deeply shaped our understanding of dogs and our approach to living with them. Turid is a visioneer and was one of the first professionals to advocate for the use of harnesses instead of harmful collars. Naturally, her opinion is very precious to us!
From Tallinn we flew over to Kristiansund in Norway. This is where Turid lives and operates her own center for dogs called Hundeland (yes, at 85 years of age Turid still works and comes up with new projects, she is a true inspiration!).
Here we were welcomed by Turid and her daughter Linda who showed us around the beautiful town of Kristiansund, the Atlantic ocean cost and the magnificent fjords.
Besides sightseeing, we were very excited to share our plans for Canuzzo with Turid and show one of the first harnesses we made. To our great happiness, Turid and Linda praised the harness design, lightness and materials! They immediately asked for several harness for their center Hundeland, which we will be honoured to supply.
Dog trainers and behaviourists need to have harnesses of different sizes available to be able to demonstrate a proper fit and the benefits of a well-adjusted harness to the clients. And with the Canuzzo harness it will be very easy to do, because they fit every dog!
During our visit in Hundeland we had another wonderful meeting: our great friend and colleague Lisa Dickel with her dog Nyako has come to see Turid as they live just a few hours away. Lisa and Nyako have kindly agreed to try the Canuzzo harness and give their opinion too. We had a great laugh while we were fitting the harness on Nyako: Turid truly wished that it had not fit, so she could keep the harness in Hundeland! :) To Turid's disappointment, the harness fitted Nyako perfectly (size L).
After a few days of testing Lisa and her dog Nyako were very happy with the Canuzzo harness. They noted how light the material is, how easy it is to adjust it to fit the dog perfectly and how much more comfortable Nyako was with the clips on the front: putting the harness on and off got so much easier! Lisa has also appreciated that this harness does not slide to the side of Nyako like most other harnesses she tried do.
Needless to say, we are very proud to receive such great and detailed feedback from our teacher and colleagues! We thank Turid and Linda Rugaas and Lisa Dickel for their hospitality and kindness. You made our visit to Norway unforgettable!