There is a gap between a dog on a held lead and a dog loose in an unfenced space, and this is what fills it. A corkscrew stake wound into the ground with a cable running from it gives a dog a defined circle to sniff and potter about in while you put up a tent, get on with the garden or eat your lunch, without either of you holding on to anything.

The stake is stainless steel with a screw thread, so it winds into turf and grips along its whole length rather than relying on being hammered in like a peg, which is what pulls out under a sideways lunge. The tether is a wire rope rather than a fabric line, the practical difference being that a bored dog cannot chew through it in ten minutes. It goes in and comes out again in under a minute.

• Stainless steel screw-in ground stake
• Wire rope tether, offered in a 6m length
• Clips to a harness or collar
• Suits gardens, campsites and caravan pitches
• Quick to install and remove, no tools needed
• Two options: stake alone, or stake with 6m wire rope

Two things worth knowing. Clip a tie-out to a well-fitted harness rather than a collar, because a dog hitting the end of a cable at speed on a collar takes the whole force through the neck. And a tethered dog is not an unsupervised dog: cables tangle round legs and furniture, and a stake in soft or waterlogged ground holds far less than the same stake in firm turf.

Who it's for: Campers, caravanners and owners of unfenced gardens who want their dog outside with them safely.