Ruff Wear Approach Pack
 Lets face it, you feed you dog, water it, pick up it's crap and basically do whatever it needs in exchange for some loyalty, loving and hopefully it will help you pick up a cute chick here or there, or for the ladies, a handsome guy.
The approach pack form Ruff Wear takes owning a dog one step further, and lets you and your puppy discover the joy of hiking together without having to caring all it’s gear and food. Perfect for one to five-day adventures, the Approach Pack allows dogs to carry their own food, water, first aid kits, treats, leads and Ruff Wear bowls. If your lazy like me, possibly have the dog carry some of your own gear. We never had the opportunity to use the pack more then a three-day trip, but we did load it down pretty good on some weekend trips. The recommended ratio is 1 lb. of gear to every three pounds of dog.
This pack has a lot of the features found on the more expensive human models including a full suspension mesh panel that disperses load while keeping dog cool. The pack has reflective trim on it for safety on those night hikes near traffic. It also has an assistance handle on it for those places that are just a little to tough to get into with the extra weight of the pack on. Just grab this and lift, and usually it is enough to get the dog over what ever it needs to. Zippers are study, material is very durable, and long wearing.
As far as the fit goes, the three-point harness is fleece padded for an extra little softness, although it does collect a lot of hair.
Ruff Wear has different sizes for different dogs. The first time the dog wears it, make sure it is out side or nothing breakable is around. The extra width causes them to run into a lot of different things. As far as getting used to it, after 10 minutes with the pack my dog was use to it and only hitting an occasion tree with it.
Which brings me to the durability. The Approach Pack is constructed of a cordura style material that seemed to hold up pretty good. We had no issues here at all with materials, stitching, or zippers. The material is also water repellant, mud puddle splashes, small stream, or a little light rain are not an issue.
This is designed for hiking and such, I would not recommend this for running, it is just way too much stress on the dog and can wear on the fur.
The only issue I had was the front strap coming loose. We did resolve this with a piece of duct tape under the fleece pad (could not see it nor did it touch the dogs fur) and if you were domesticated, you could throw a quick little stitch in it.
Manufacturer: Ruff Wear
Price: $49.99-59.99 |
