Dog Catcher Pole Animal Catch Pole Control Tool Trap Kit for Dogs, Pig, Fox, Hog and Other Wildlife Catching - 52inch with Flashlight

Bought for my son to remove animals from live traps. Pole is long enough to keep your distance and lead the animal to a different location.

Works great on our piglets.

This catcher-pole is great for variously sized animals, and it's both sturdy and long enough to put distance between me and any danger of being bitten or scratched. The flashlight is a little dinky and not super bright, but it can be easily replaced with something similar in size because the bracket that holds it is adjustable. Overall, this is very effective for catching and the mechanism and cable are both very strong.

It will tighten fine but kept getting stuck when I would try and release it to let the animal go. I would never use this again as it’s a huge safety hazard for the human and animal.

This is a lot heavier construction than I imagined it would be. It's lightweight, but very sturdy and I feel like it will last a long time, even with repeated use. It has a plastic coated cable that grabs the animal without any sharp edges. The head of it has nothing sharp, or any way to pinch it. The flashlight is a nice touch. It runs on AA batteries (not included) and can be clipped anywhere along the pole or used separately. I have mine at the end of it, seems to make the most sense. It has a heavy duty steel pole that would definitely support the weight of anything you catch quite easily, and then some! The pole itself is about 49 inches, so the 52 inches is measured from the tip of the handle, but still long enough that animals feel like you are a safe distance away and won't run. I raise rabbits, and this is perfect for them. One thing I don't love, and the reason it gets 4 stars instead of 5, is the locking mechanism. I get that you need a way to lock it in order to actually secure the animal once you have it on the hook, but I don't like that it automatically locks. I'd like to see a manual lock/release that is separate. I will likely doctor mine to do just that. I don't see it as a safety thing though, as some other reviewer had mentioned. It's just a little inconvenient. For people who haven't used one of these before, You don't jerk the handle back suddenly. You casually, slowly pass the loop around the animal's head and one of it's front legs (not just its neck!!!), and then slowly tighten it just to the point where it is snug. If you do it right, there is no danger of the lock endangering the animal's life. Many of them have this style of lock, and it really isn't an issue except for convenience. The one 'weak' point (at least on mine) is the spot where the cable locks into the tip. The coating doesn't start until after the tip, so it allows for the cable to rub against the metal, which over a long period of time would likely wear out the cable in that spot. If/when that happens, you could cut 2 inches off and re-attach it, or (what I'm planning) you could loosen those 2 bolts and stick the cable down in another 1/4 inch so it can't rub. They are allen key bolts, maybe 3/16.