Best Dog Night Walking Lights, According To Pet Parents

All exercise is good exercise, yet walking at night comes with its unique challenges. Worries about losing your hound in the dark will be chief among them. In actuality, this doesn’t have to be any bigger a deal than it is in the daytime. You’ll just want to put a few measures in place to keep you and your Dood safe when you’re out and about in low-lighting situations. A top-quality dog night walking light is a great place to start. 

Table of Contents

• Benefits of Using Dog Night Walking Lights 
• Best Dog Night Walking Lights: Reviews 
• Tips For Safety Walking Your Dog At Night
• Dog Night Walking Lights: Frequently Asked Questions
• Final Thoughts

Benefits of Using Dog Night Walking Lights

While you likely do all you can to ensure your dog gets walked during daylight hours, sometimes life conspires against you. With work eating up your day and the winter months with the day drawing in earlier and earlier, likely, you’ll at least spend some of your time taking your pet out at dusk or later than that even. In fact, if you’re a night owl, these might well be some of the best walks you and your pal have together.

If you’ve ever found yourself out and about with Fido in the late (or early) hours, especially if you live in a place where street lights are few and far between, you’ll know the difficulty that can come from being unable to see much of what’s going on. You’ll frequently find yourself fumbling around with your phone torch (we’ve all been there). The issue with this is if you have a bit boisterous boy or bab, the juggling act might be a bit much. That’s why it might be time to invest in a decent dog night walking light. Benefits include:

Making Your Pet Visible To Motorists

This really is the number one reason most pet parents pick up an LED light collar for their dog. While you’re probably sure to keep your canine firmly leashed up while walking anywhere they could get easy access to traffic, accidents happen – the leash slips from your hand, their collar or harness snaps… If this were to happen to you and your pooch took it in their head to run across the road, you’d want to be sure they could easily be seen (and avoided) by passing motorists.

Helps You Keep Track Of Your Dog

Even if your pal slips loose but doesn’t make for the road, a night light dog collar will help you to better see exactly where they have disappeared off to. Alternatively, you may have a well-behaved pup you feel confident letting off the leash in a secure area. A night light will help you keep a better eye on them while they are burning off all their excess energy. Beyond that, as a responsible dog owner, you’ll also want to be able to spot, pick up, and dispense with their (ahem) mess. A good night light can obviously help with this part too. 

Easier To Spot Obstacles At Night

Finally, a dog walking night light can benefit your safety, too, especially if you’re on hiking trails with uneven surfaces and things to be avoided. A lovely LED light can be clipped onto your pet’s leash, harness, or collar and will help brighten up the world around you and make everything easier to see. So you’re saved from tripping and falling, your dog is saved from running off in front of a car, and the countryside is saved from dog poop that owners can’t spot at night. A winning situation all around! 

Dog Night Walking Lights: Buyer’s Guide

Now that we’ve convinced you that you need one of these excellently handy devices let’s take more of a look at what’s out there on the market and what you’re going to need to pay attention to before deciding on the right dog walking light for you and your pup. 

Quality, Style, & Design

While LED light dog collars tend to be what people think of first when considering a dog night walking light, this is only one of an array of options. However, we feel it’s a good one. There are various different types – some that resemble real collars and others that look more like the glow sticks people used to dance around nightclubs with in the 90s. If you pay attention to the quality of construction and various other factors (below), either can be a great pick. You just want to make sure it’s made of sturdy stuff is all.  

Another possible night walking light option is an LED light that can be clipped directly onto your pup’s collar, harness, or leash handle. The obvious benefit of this kind of light is that you can have it anywhere you need it. If you’re scrabbling around to locate poop bags or training treats, clipping it to the leash handle makes it more convenient. If you’ve got everything to hand, pop it on your pet’s collar to be sure to know where they are.

Brightness & Battery Backup

The most important feature of your dog’s night walking light (whatever form it takes) is obviously the light part. So that’s really where you need to begin when checking out the specs of potential products. A dull light is going to do you no good, and neither is a light that lets you down when you need it the most. These are two things to check straight off the bat – how bright is the light, and how exactly is it powered?

When it comes to the battery, you have a couple of options. You might be all into the convenience of a rechargeable light (as long as you actually remember to recharge it, that is!), or you could go for the coin battery option. With the latter, you’ll need to be sure you always have fresh batteries to hand, but if you do, you won’t have to ever wait before being able to use the light. The practical among you may even think to include the batteries as part of your pet walking kit so that if the light dies en route, you’re covered. 

Waterproofing

Once you’ve sorted the style and functionality, you’ll want to look at durability. A collar or light might look all to the good in terms of design and brightness, yet a simple shower of rain might be all that’s needed to kill it. As with anything you’re taking off outside in the wintertime, you want to be sure that your light is, at the very least, water-resistant. 

Waterproofness, or water-resistantness (most products tend to be the latter rather than the former), is typically measured with an IP rating. This ranges from 0 to 9, with nine being the most water-resistant. Anything above a four, though, should do pretty well just with weather. It might not be quite as good if your Dood is the kind that can’t resist jumping into just about any body of water they come across. 

Colors

Often dog night walking lights are available in a range of colors. While you may simply be tempted to go for your favorite or the one that suits your hound the most, it’s good to keep in mind that some colors are more easily seen in low-lighting situations than others. This is to do with the color-processing cones in our eyes. Without going too deeply into the science of it all, brighter colors like whites, yellows, and reds tend to be a bit easier to spot than more blue-based ones. 

Comfort & Fit

Finally, you might have the very best of the best in terms of the light, but again that’s not going to help very much if, when Fido dashes off, the light gets left behind. That’s why it’s crucial to pay attention to the quality of how the device is attached to your pet or their collar, harness, or leash. In terms of light collars, you want to be sure that it won’t be easy for your pup to simply give it the slip. With lights, you want something that can be clipped and secured onto where you want it to be. 

Best Dog Night Walking Lights: Reviews

Best For Tracking Your Dog: Nite Ize NiteHowl LED Safety Necklace Dog Collar

On the surface of things, Nite Ize’s LED Dog Collar offering looks like it might not be the best option. After all, it’s got the whole glow stick, strictly for fun vibe going on. But you’d be surprised! A simple polymer tubing that’s to be worn alongside your pet’s collar rather than in place of it, the necklace can be slipped over your pup’s head, adjusted for fit and comfort, and off you go. You can even set the LED lights to flash mode for extra visibility. 

With over a thousand reviews, this product has a more than 80% approval rating. This is not something you see every day. It’s what got our attention. The collar itself is simple, easy to use (customers LOVE the price), and, most importantly, it’s very visible. And not only is it highly functional, but many reviewers commented on how great it looks, too… so there is that. Plus, it’s available in five different fun colors – good for multiple pets! 

Best For Keeping You Both Safe: Lightvise Universal Super Bright LED Clamp-On Leash, Collar & Harness Flashlight

If you’re after a good all-rounder, you really can’t go wrong with Lightvise’s Clamp-On Flashlight. With its 24 super bright LEDs that cast a wide angle of lighting and those excellent rubber grip fingers that ensure the light holds fast to anything you attach it to, it truly is an excellent choice. Probably the very best thing about this super torch is that you can clip it on just about anywhere you need to, which means its usage extends far beyond night walks with your dog – but for those, it totally has you covered too. 

With 90% of people who have purchased this item sure that they would recommend it to a friend, you know you’re onto a good thing here. Reviewers love that the flashlight is lightweight, portable, doesn’t get in the way, and is very bright too. It makes it incredibly easy to see what’s what in the space all around, helps you and your dog to be spotted, and also works well for poop duty. As far as hands-free lights go, it’s one of the best. 

Best For Seeing Where You’re Going: Nite Ize Rechargeable LED Dog Leash

The jazzy choice for any dog who loves to disco! Just kidding – kind of… Our final pick of the dog walking night lights is this full-length leash light. Available in your choice of blue or lime, it’s designed with two high-powered LED lights that provide total leash illumination. The best thing about this excellent light is that a single charge will keep it brightly glowing for up to six hours. Then simply recharge it back up, and off you go. 

Again this light has got what counts – the brightness factor – and it seems to have that in spades, according to the reviews. In fact, pup parent grumbles that the leash is so bright that their pet walking out in front of them sadly messed with their night vision (something to keep in mind, perhaps…). The other great thing about this product is that its functionality as a leash is on par with its functionality as a light – it’s tough and well-made. 

Tips For Safety Walking Your Dog At Night

Having a suitable night walking dog light or LED light collar for dogs is a great first step in making sure that both you and your hound are taken care of while off on a jaunt in the nighttime hours. Alongside that, there are a few other things you can do to improve your safety and enjoyment of nighttime walking. These include: 

• Dressing in bright, easy-to-see colors. Reflective stickers are also a good shout for both you and your dog if you are going to be walking on or near roads. 
• Staying on the sidewalk where possible. When walking along roads without one, walk against the traffic (with your dog on the inside), where you will be more easily seen.
• Always using a leash. Even if you’re pretty confident your pet will stick with you, you never know what might happen. They could see something tempting to chase or get spooked, and you’ll be left hunting them down half the night. 
• Avoiding phone calls and headphones. At night more than at other times, you need your wits about you. Both your phone and music could be an unwelcome distraction. 

Dog Night Walking Lights: Frequently Asked Questions

Final Thoughts

When you find yourself frequently heading out for walkie time long after the sun has said goodnight, you might find yourself struggling with issues such as keeping track of your pooch in the park or finding your way about safely. Happily, simple solutions are available to make nighttime walks a safer option for you and your pet. One of these is the dog night walking lights. Offering a better choice than grappling with your cell phone, these come typically in collar or flashlight format and can make low-light walking an absolute breeze. If we’ve managed to convince you of the many, many advantages night walking lights offer, hopefully, our recommendations will also prove useful for you in selecting a good one.