Best harness for Havanese with wide chest straps

Small dog harnesses have some real fitting challenges — most are too loose around the chest or too rigid for smaller builds, and what works on a Chihuahua is completely wrong for a Dachshund. So I'm glad you're thinking carefully about this. To point you in the right direction: what breed and weight is your dog, what are you mainly using the harness for — daily walks, travel, something else — and have you had issues with straps slipping or rubbing before?

That's a classic Havanese problem. They have a surprisingly broad, square chest for a small dog, but it's also relatively flat — so standard H-harnesses spread the front straps apart as if there's more length to the torso than there actually is. You end up with straps that sit out on her shoulders rather than lying flat across her chest. Can I ask — are you using an H-style harness currently, or have you tried a vest style? And is chafing an issue as well, or purely the fit and security?

Right, that makes complete sense. H-harnesses just aren't built for her proportions. What you need is a harness with a single, adjustable front chest piece that you can position precisely across her sternum — rather than two separate straps that are fixed in their spacing. My recommendation for her specifically is the Ruffwear Front Range Harness in size XS. It has a padded chest panel that sits as one unit across the front, two points of size adjustment on both the chest and belly, and the girth of the padding means it actually makes contact across her whole chest rather than bridging over it. At 5.5kg she'll sit in the lower end of the XS range, which gives you room to fine-tune the fit. It's also got a back clip and a front chest clip, so if she does pull you have options. It's around £45–50 on Amazon UK and it's genuinely one of the few harnesses that works well on square, compact small breeds.

It's a fair concern but in practice it isn't — the XS is proportioned for dogs her size, so the padding is scaled down. It's soft foam rather than thick padding, enough to stop pressure points but not so chunky that it swamps her. A lot of Havanese owners specifically use the Front Range for this reason. If anything, owners find their dogs settle into it quickly because there are no pressure points digging in anywhere. Measure around her chest just behind her front legs before ordering — for the XS you're looking for a girth of roughly 33–43cm — and you should be good.

Good luck with the measuring! If she comes in right at the top of XS, size up to Small rather than trying to squeeze her in — you want the chest panel sitting flat, not pulling inward. She should get a much more secure fit than anything she's had before.