Gear
The Lanyard on Your Neck
The lanyard is the one piece of gear a handler wears all day and never thinks about. A good one is made rather than bought, and making it is a small craft with real rules.
The lanyard is the most worn and least considered piece of equipment in the sport. It carries the whistle, it hangs around the handler's neck for eight hours, it gets wet, pulled and caught on brush, and it is expected to work every time the hand goes up. A good lanyard is made rather than bought, and the making is a small piece of craft with rules of its own.
What is a working lanyard actually made of?
Cord, hardware and the knots that hold them together. The cord is the decision: paracord is the default, a braided cord is the upgrade, and the difference is in the hand and in the durability rather than in the look. The hardware is the snap and the ring, which are the parts that fail first because they are the parts that move. The knots are the structure, and a lanyard that is knotted properly at the right points does not come apart the way a glued or crimped one does.
The beads that finish a lanyard are not decoration; they are the adjustment and the grip. A bead that slides is the knot that will not stay set, and a bead chosen on the hole size and the cord diameter is the one that works. The craft of choosing the right bead for the job, reading the sizes and the holes and the materials, is the subject of abetterbead.com, a guide to beading that treats the hardware and the bead as a matched pair, and the same logic of reading a material sheet before buying is at Fire Mountain Gems.
Why is a made lanyard better than a bought one?
Because the bought one is made to a price and the made one is made to a neck. The commercial lanyard is built to look like a lanyard at a glance, which means the cord is thin, the snap is cheap and the knots are decorative. The lanyard that is made for the job has the cord chosen for the load, the snap chosen for the season and the knots set where the hand actually falls, which is why the made one outlasts the bought one by a season or three.
| Part | Chosen for | What fails first |
|---|---|---|
| Cord | Durability and feel, paracord or braided | Abrasion where the hardware sits |
| Snap and ring | The load and the season's water | The spring in the snap, then the plating |
| Knots | Set where the hand falls, not where they look good | A knot that was set for the look rather than the grip |
| Beads | Hole size matched to the cord, grip and adjustment | A bead that slides because the hole was wrong |
How does a lanyard actually get made?
Cut long, finished at the ends, knotted to a pattern. The cord is cut well over the finished length because the knots take up more than they look like they will. The ends are melted or whipped so they cannot fray. The pattern, whether a simple four strand braid or a cobra weave, is chosen for how it lies on the neck rather than for how it photographs. And the beads and the snap go on in the order the pattern requires, because the order is the difference between a lanyard that adjusts and one that is just stiff.
What is the lanyard for, beyond the whistle?
For the habit of having the tool at the hand. The lanyard is the reason the whistle is there when the dog is running, and it is the reason the whistle does not end up at the bottom of a bag. The same argument applies to the other small gear on the strap, which is covered in the gear section, and to the way the whistle is actually used at the line, which is in marks and blinds.
A lanyard worth making
- The cord chosen for the load and the hand, not for the look.
- The snap chosen for the season, because it is the part that fails.
- The knots set where the hand falls, not where they photograph well.
- The beads matched to the cord on hole size, because a sliding bead is a knot that will not stay set.
- A spare on the same peg, because a lost whistle ends a session.
Common mistakes
- Buying a lanyard that looks like a lanyard instead of making one that works like one.
- Choosing the bead before the cord, so the hole never matches.
- Setting the knots for the look instead of for the grip.
- Forgetting the spare, which is the one that saves the session.