Our Path
Outdoor exploration has been a lifelong ardour for Ruffwear founder Patrick Kruse. Whether hiking, biking, flying, or sailing, he’s continually sought methods to share these adventures with his canines companions.
Born in Patrick’s garage, Ruffwear has grown into a world chief in overall performance canine gear. From the start, we’ve been dedicated to innovative ingenuity and sustainable practices, striving to do greater with much less and limit our environmental impact.
For 30 years, we have stimulated and improved out of doors adventures for puppies and their human companions. Our ardour for exploration stays as robust as ever.

1961
Patrick is born into a pack

This Kruse household image is taken three years earlier than Patrick is born. Yet these two dogs, Olin and Rexie, are vital household participants that Patrick experiences from an early age. Dogs proceed to be quintessential household members, instilling in Patrick a deep perception of the bonds four-legged buddies have in our lives.
1973
A signal of matters to come…

From a younger age, Patrick and his household hike and backpack in the Sierras. Patrick desires to convey his canine Marriah along, so at age 12 he heads to an Army Navy surplus keep looking out for a solution. He finds some bags, which he sews collectively with his mom’s computing device to create his first canine pack.
1977
A extraordinary path

Following his wanderlust, Patrick passes his GED at 16, heads for the Caribbean, and crews on a 72-foot ketch, Taormina. From diving on tropical reefs to experiencing communities in turmoil, Patrick beneficial properties a broader world perspective. Living earlier than the mast additionally requires ingenuity, and Patrick takes on mechanical repairs, woodworking and sewing, inspiring Ruffwear’s faith in doing greater with less, being creatively resourceful, and constructing items to last.
1982
Island fever

Feeling drawn once more to mountains and rivers, Patrick returns to California. Leaning on capabilities won in the Caribbean, he launches his personal business, Mariner Marine Works. It teaches him the cost of being responsive to purchaser needs, which leads to Ruffwear’s customer-centric outlook.
1989
Passion meets profession

From mountain biking to windsurfing, Patrick’s passions take him outside. On a Green River trip, pals and household introduce him to whitewater kayaking, and Patrick acknowledges that fabric and methods from different outside tools should make for higher kayaking equipment. He sees a want and strives to clear up it by means of beginning any other business: Salamander Paddle Gear.
1992
The spark

During a day mountain biking in California’s Los Padres National Forest, Patrick observes his buddy struggling to provide her canine a drink the use of a plastic bag. Inspiration and want once more converge. If cloth can hold water out, why can’t it preserve water in? Days later, he creates a prototype collapsible bowl. It’s the establishing of the 1/3 endeavor: Ruffwear.
1993
A megastar is born and a emblem created

An deserted junkyard canine determined in downtown LA turns into the notion for the Ruffwear logo. Ursula teaches her guardian, Patrick’s pal Lynne, about responsibility, dedication and unconditional love. Ursula’s story is the notion for Ruffwear’s faith in partnering with corporations that assist positive adoption campaigns.
1994
Customers lap it up

Patrick brings 15 Ruffwear bowls to the Outdoor Retailer Show and locations them on a desk in the Salamander Paddle Gear booth. The bowls intrigue many, together with an LL Bean purchaser who orders 8,000. Ruffwear places a new product class on the map — out of doors canine gear. This method of bringing canine tools to the out of doors market in addition nurtures Ruffwear’s spirit of innovation and devotion to following our personal path.
1994
Learning with the aid of doing

Working from his garage, Patrick scrambles to preserve up with demand for Ruffwear’s bowl. Industry gamers like Title Nine and Outside journal function Ruffwear, and Patrick does the entirety from designing merchandise to making income to enjoyable orders. This learning-by-doing strategy lets in him to scale up the enterprise whilst persevering with to be Ruffwear’s sole employee.
1997
Road trippin’ and product research

Patrick hits the street to discover and to join with clients at shows, occasions and festivals, logging 40,000 miles in the first yr with his canines sidekick Otis. Through listening and observing, new product thoughts are conceived, putting a popular for Ruffwear’s customer-driven product design.
1998
Growing the pack

Patrick strikes to Bend, Oregon, drawn with the aid of the area’s aggregate of mountains, rivers and desert. It’s an best location for an out of doors way of life and to develop an out of doors business. Patrick hires his first employees. Continuing its path of commercial enterprise unusual, Ruffwear reinvests its income to develop sustainably as a substitute than take on debt. This strategy presents the freedom to take possibilities whilst focusing on ardour and purpose.
2001
Supporting working dogs

After the catastrophic occasions of 9/11, a journalist asks a rescue employee what they want most and the reply is “dog boots.” By coordinating with customers, FedEx and Search & Rescue, Ruffwear helps make certain the much-needed components make it to the search teams. While Ruffwear has helped working puppies in the past, this tournament cements the dedication to helping the desires of working puppies and their handlers.
2007
Supporting wild places

Committed to the want to shield wild locations the place puppies and humans play, Ruffwear joins The Conservation Alliance, supplying an annual contribution and protecting exceptional match sales, with all proceeds going to the organization’s mission to shield public lands. The Ruffwear pack additionally volunteers in The Conservation Alliance’s Backyard Collective, rolling up out of date fence, getting rid of invasive weeds and performing different restoration work in the field.
2008
Buried alive and digging it

Patrick attends the Wasatch Backcountry Rescue Dog School at Alta, Utah, to examine the wishes of avalanche puppies and their handlers. In the following years, Ruffwear will become the avalanche canine uniform dealer of preference for U.S. ski inns and worldwide teams. Ruffwear’s product improvement crew participates at the college to this day, the place they lend a hand, get buried in the snow and reap precious product insights and feedback. It’s section of Ruffwear’s core fee of designing for function.
2009
Sniffing for science

Ruffwear companions with Conservation Canines, a nonprofit that rescues hard-to-home puppies and applies their excessive strength and competencies to sniff out scat for scientific lookup and useful resource management. The remarks won from these hardworking puppies drives domestic precious insights about designing equipment from a dog’s standpoint whilst contributing to maintaining our herbal resources.
2015
Dog’s fantastic friend

Stemming from Ruffwear’s faith in helping fantastic adoption efforts, Ruffwear joins forces with Best Friends Animal Society to launch the Ruff Adventure Dog Adoption Program. Ruffwear cash the adoption and tour prices to join outside adventurers with energetic human companions, and lives are always changed.
2016
Connections constructed to last

What began as a one-man store has grown into 38 committed pack individuals who work difficult and play hard, together. Ruffwear has twice been named one of Outside magazine’s one hundred Best Places to Work, and our merchandise are observed in fifty three countries. We’re dog-devoted, outdoor-oriented humans who love what we do — and it shows.
2017
The experience continues

Through a sustainable method to developing our business, Ruffwear is honored to be capable to provide $50,000 to The Conservation Alliance to maintain and defend the locations the place we stay and play. We proceed striving to put our first-class paw forward, constructing overall performance canine tools to decorate and encourage exploration for outside adventurers and their human companions.
2019
In This Together

Working puppies and their human companions have been phase of Ruffwear’s coronary heart and soul considering that the beginning. In 2019, we targeted on the desires of working puppies and their handlers with the aid of growing the UniFly™ Guide Dog Harness. We discovered that having a imaginative and prescient doesn’t suggest being in a position to see with your eyes.
2020
Working like a dog… from home

Covid-19 made 2020 a yr of getting to know to navigate uncharted waters. It was once vital to have all of us in the proverbial raft collectively to navigate the unknown rapids of a world pandemic. Ruffwear supported our personnel with the aid of growing higher stability and fostering deep relationships even whilst working remotely.
2021
Navigating the ever-changing river

The new yr delivered new challenges for the Ruffwear Pack. Our developing group got here collectively to reply to furnish chain challenges and the moving pandemic landscape. Our sustainability center of attention deepened to consist of attaining one hundred percent renewable electrical energy for our U.S. operations. Ruffwear was once nominated as one of REI’s 2020 Vendor Partners of the Year. And in December, we honored Will Blount, Ruffwear President of 20 years, as he stepped away to pursue his subsequent adventure.
2022
New Rapids to Navigate & Learn From

The hyper-growth of 2020-2021 rapidly turned-off in early 2022 and uncovered Ruffwear’s want to analyze how to proceed develop in new market conditions. We reviewed how we have been the usage of our time and made selections to stop, begin or maintain things to do that had been core to taking care of Ruffwear in unsure waters. Even although the waters had been unsure for Ruffwear, we persevered to make investments deeply in the Pack via appreciably increasing advantages and benchmarking compensation towards enterprise requirements for our dimension and industry.
2023
Sustainability stays a core focus

A dedication to lowering have an impact on is woven into the material of Ruffwear — we’ve used recycled substances in our packaging from the begin and have been putting off PFAS for greater than a decade. But in 2023, we met some main sustainability goals. 80% of revamped designs in the Fall/Winter 2023 launch decreased affect in contrast to their preceding versions, and we hit our inner closing date to quit all manufacturing with PFAS-containing substances by way of the year’s end.
2024
Celebrating 30 years

Ruffwear celebrated 210 canine years of inspiring canine and human connections outdoors. We stay actual to our roots and will proceed to do so shifting forward, embracing a learn-by-doing mindset, prioritizing sustainability, and committing to innovation, quality, and unleashing possibility.

Our Purpose

At Ruffwear, we envision a world the place Every Dog Is An Explorer.

We are fueled through the pursuit of discovery, freedom, challenge, and growth. Driven by means of insatiable curiosity, our pack flourishes on the thrill of forging new paths and uncovering hidden truths, both in the exterior and inside ourselves.

Our ethos of “Business Unusual” permits us the willingness to take intentional dangers that promote creativity, beef up consumer relationships, and limit our have an impact on on the planet. Our privately held business enterprise reinvests income again into our commercial enterprise to preserve it sustainable and nimble, and we companion with companies like The Conservation Alliance to assist shield the lands and waterways the place canines and human beings join and thrive.
Our Path

For over 30 years, we have stimulated and stronger out of doors adventures for puppies and their human companions. See how a apparently easy collapsible bowl started out it all.
Explore Our History
Our Pursuit of Better

Since 1994, Ruffwear has blended innovation, quality, and healthy to construct tools that enhances out of doors hobbies for canines explorers and their human companions.

Based in Bend, Oregon, we are surrounded with the aid of the inspiring landscapes of Central Oregon with trails out our the front door and the Cascade volcanoes simply down the road. From lunchtime rides to weekend summits, the place we name domestic is additionally the last playground to check our tools as we construct it.

Our relationship with working canines brings our trying out to the subsequent level. From mountain snowstorms to city catastrophe zones, working puppies and handlers put our equipment via rigorous checking out in each kind of environment. Their comments on fit, durability, and overall performance helped form who we are nowadays and the place we’re going next.

Working Dog Partnerships

Working puppies and their human companions have been phase of Ruffwear’s coronary heart and soul for the reason that our beginnings. We stay by way of the rule that if working puppies have confidence their gear, then you can too.
Our Gear Testing Process

Here at Ruffwear, we have excessive standards. Our tools is designed to be durable, secure, and at ease for your dog, and to decorate their adventures — in no way getting in the way.
Hardware Innovation at Ruffwear

We’re fueled through our wish to continuously beautify the connection between puppies and humans. Since our beginnings, we have strived to create stronger, lighter, and extra intuitive designs, and we’ve got in no way seemed back.

Sustainability at Ruffwear

Our experience of accountability is inextricable from our purpose. Holding ourselves and every different guilty to our work for the company and, by means of extension, for the planet is rooted in our ‘why’ of unleashing opportunity for puppies and their humans.

Working Like Dogs

We’re an adventurous and curious Pack pushed with the aid of a ardour for the canine-human connection. We work – and of course, play – like puppies to domesticate a world the place all puppies and their human companions thrive in the exterior and unleash a existence of discovery.

As lifelong explorers, we trust remarkable equipment is like the bond between dogs and human—forever unwavering. That’s why we push ahead day in and day out to bring up their outside experiences collectively with long-lasting, solution-focused gear.

Behind the Scenes, Beneath the Snow

Follow alongside as Ruffwear Pack individuals Mark and Alex attend Wasatch Backcountry Rescue’s Avy Dog training.
Dani & Vilas Running Guide

Learn how to run with your canine with professional hints from Pack member Dani and her pup Vilas.
Pack Picks for Winter Gear

Get straightforward, no-bones-about-it recommendation on iciness canine equipment from the Ruffwear Pack.