Ruffwear founder gears up dogs for outdoor adventures

In the past few decades, dogs went from being pets that stayed in the back yard and at home, except for daily walks around the neighborhood, to companions that accompanied us on our activities and on our outdoor adventures.

Patrick Kruse, founder of Bend-based Ruffwear, has tapped into this growing passion and is creating outdoor gear that works for man’s best friend so that we can take our dogs on our adventures.

Kruse, now 55, grew up in Southern California.

“We were involved in a lot of outdoor activities … waterskiing, backpacking, snow skiing,” he said. And dogs were a big part of family life.

“My first dog was when I was about 7 years old. He was a black lab that came from the pound or humane society, and his name was Gomer. I was a big fan of the TV show ‘Gomer Pyle,’ and when I saw him, he just looked kind of like a Gomer: fun and lovable and goofy.”

“Early on, dogs were really just pets. They lived in the backyard. You’d take them for walks, but we wouldn’t take them backpacking or things like that. My dad was into hunting when I was very young, so we would take a couple of the dogs hunting with us, but that was really far and few between. I can remember maybe three times that the dogs went out with us.”

But as Kruse started growing up, things changed, and the dogs started accompanying them on their adventures. And when they did, necessity and a stroke of childhood ingenuity became what was the seed for the idea behind Ruffwear.

Kruse started backpacking with his family and his dog Marriah (a Shepherd-Collie mix) when he was 11 or 12.

“Because we didn’t have any dog backpacks at the time, I went down to the Army-Navy surplus and bought some Navy gas mask bags. Basically they were just these little satchels or bags that were used for a different purpose and I took two of them and sewed them together and made my first dog backpack. ... We went backpacking up in The Trinity Alps with our dogs in Northern California and the backpack was a pretty poor example of a backpack, but it was kind of that first step into making products for dogs for me,” Kruse said.

As an early teenager, his ability to sew led to other creative inventions. In his home, sewing wasn’t just a girl’s thing.

“I lived with four sisters and my mom, and it was really an era where everybody made a lot of their own clothes. There was always a sewing machine set up, and so a sewing machine wasn’t really a male or female-oriented tool, it was just something that was a tool that was set up in our home for using. So at a very young age, I learned how to sew, and with that skill, I was able to put together a lot of things in my childhood,” he said.

The next invention he made for Marriah was a dog cart.

"If you’ve ever seen harness racing for horses, it’s just like that: a little two-wheeled cart that gets pulled behind the dog and attaches to the dog with a harness. I had to make a harness for Marriah. So I went down to the local junk yard, and the guy running the junk yard sold me a bunch of old seatbelts that I cut out of cars. Using those seat belts, I went down to a shoe repair man because my sewing machine certainly wouldn’t sew through all these seat belts, and together we sat down with them and sewed up a dog harness. And that harness was used in my dog cart that I built,” he said.

As he grew older, the trend of taking dogs on adventures also grew.

“I started going whitewater kayaking ... and when you’re whitewater kayaking, often times you’re out there on your own. You meet up with other people, but dogs would go with us, just because they were easy to have along, they were fun, and they became part of the adventure. And at some point, I started a kayak company called Salamander Paddle Gear, and we built a bunch of paddle sport equipment for kayaking, and from that, I learned a lot about fabrics and materials and how to build different things.”

“One day during the off season when there wasn’t any water in the rivers, we were out mountain biking with some friends, and one of my friends had brought along a plastic bag to offer her dog some water. This was in the days before camelbacks, and we had little 21- and 24-ounce bike bottles, and she went to offer her dog a drink by pouring this bike bottle into a plastic bag, and when she offered that plastic bag full of water to her dog Mokie, Mokie stuck his nose into the bag and backed away quickly. He was kind of spooked by the bag,” he said. “She really couldn’t sit the bag down because it would fall over and all of the water would spill out and she couldn’t put all the water back into her bike bottle because the dog had taken a few licks of water, so she kind of looked up to me and said, ‘Why don’t you come up with a better solution?’ ”

“I kind of looked at her and laughed and said, ‘Why is this my problem to solve?’”

Oregon Top 5: Best snowshoe routes in Western Oregon

But Kruse’s mind didn’t stop working on the idea.

“After we finished that ride, we were in the car driving back home, and I kind of started to think that in my experience with the whitewater kayaking equipment we wear these dry tops, which are basically fabric that is waterproof, and if we can keep the water out, what if we just reversed that and kept the water in? And so I came back to my little office facility, which was basically a little bedroom and garage where I was shipping gear out of in Southern California and working with my sample sewer, we came up with a design, and it was the first collapsible food and water bowl,” he said.

That was basically the beginning of Ruffwear in 1994.

“After about 9 months of testing … I made 15 of these bowls and took them to Outdoor Retailer, which is this large trade show for outdoor retailers.”

“At that show, I just put a little card table in the corner of the Salamander booth, and lots of people were coming by and checking out Ruffwear gear, gear for dogs on the go. They were very interested and curious about it. And L.L. Bean came by and ordered 8,000 bowls, and they continued to repeat that order every month for the next year. So we were off and running with Ruffwear right out of the gate,” Kruse said.

Two years later in 1996, Kruse bought a house in Bend because he wanted to be closer to his partners in Salamander Paddle Gear, who were living there. Plus there were benefits for Ruffwear to be in Bend too.

“It’s a great location to develop and test the products that we make. In 1998, I was able to move up to Bend after wrapping things up in Southern California,” Kruse said. “We started up operations here, and we had both Salamander and Ruffwear operating out of a shared facility. One of the best things about having Ruffwear up in this area is the access to all kinds of different environments from lava to desert to snow to riparian areas. All of these areas allowed us to test products. And so that was really a great opportunity, and it also allowed us to walk out the back door and do some photo shoots in the environment that we build our product to perform in. The company's line of products has grown from that initial dog bowl to collars, leashes, harnesses, insulating coats and jackets, rain jackets, flotation jackets, insulating boots and more.

Do's and don'ts for dog outdoor adventures

Kruse had started the company with his girlfriend at the time, Lynne Siodmak, who was a textile designer.

“My thought was I would run Salamander and she would run Ruffwear and we’d both be able to go on road trips and test out gear and explore our creative offerings and building products. About a year or so into it, Lynne got a job at Patagonia as a textile designer, and so she split off and worked at Patagonia, and I took on Ruffwear full-time in 1996.”

The partners eventually sold Salamander.

Since culture around dogs and dog ownership has really changed in the past decade, it has allowed Ruffwear to flourish. Dogs went from being backyard and home animals to being companions that went on outdoor adventures with their owners.

“They go hiking with us and backpacking with us, they go mountain backing with us, they go kayaking with us,” he said.

"Once we make it easier to hydrate a dog on a trail or for them to carry their own gear, for them to stay warm when it gets cold out, for them to have some foot or paw protection when the going gets rough, that all takes some of the challenge out of incorporating or bringing your dog along for the adventure.”

This strengthens the bond between owner and dog and is part of a culture that Ruffwear has been able to tap into, with brand ambassadors, blogs and how customers engage with the company using social media like when people Instagram or tweet photos of activities that they do with their dogs, clad of course in Ruffwear gear.

“I think dogs are pretty excitable. They have this free spirit, and having them along on our adventures really allow us to see our explorations and our adventures in a new light. We see it through their eyes, and I think it brings a lot of joy to us because of that,” he said.

Patrick Kruse

Residence: Bend

College: Cypress Junior College

Family: Wife Colleen Kruse and daughter Ivee, 3

Dogs: Mavis, an Australian cattle dog, and Gordo, a Malamute mix

Shop: Ruffwear.com or find it at Salem Summit Company, R.E.I and Sportsman's Warehouse