So we get out hiking and snowshoeing and I have a lot of gear…gear I use and probably don’t always need. But when it comes to taking your furry buddy with you, sometimes they need to carry their own weight!
So the rule of thumb is no more than 25% of body weight maximum to carry on Fido’s back. For our little Miss Skye that’s a whopping 3.75lbs. Now, she is a very slight framed Aussie so for safety and comfortability for me…she does not get to carry any more than 2 to 2.5lbs. More than that on a long hike I would be concerned about joint and ligament strain.
Find a pack to fit our little girl was quite the ordeal. We don’t like to invest crazy money into something we don’t know is going to be an all the time use item. But in this case we didn’t really have a choice.
We checked out some of those cheaper Amazon packs – none were sized right for her. We checked out local shops and found a few off brand that we tried on…again….not the right fit. The fit of a pack should be comfortable for the dog and not create any high friction points when they move. Then we finally gave in and tried on the Ruffwear packs.
Now, Ruffwear knows what they are doing with adventurous dog gear. They’re a big name. You also pay for that name! But their stuff feels sturdy and heavy duty to last some rough terrain.
For Skye, we had to find the right fit and the right capacity. We tried on the Sidewinder which fit beautifully and didn’t look too cumbersome on her. My issue with the sidewinder was the pocket capacity was quite narrow. Skye could essentially take my phone and wallet and that would be it. When I am wanting her to carry her own poop bags and bowls the sidewinder won’t cut it. For a runner or a quick tripper this would be a great pack! But capacity was too small for our needs.
Then there was the Palisades. Now the Palisades is a roomy pup pack. Its saddlebags are quite generous in capacity for overnighting or lengthy hikes. But for Skye, they were too big. The large bags flopped and dwarfed our little missy. We would never have her carry anything that big in the bags so again, not for us. For a bulldog or a bigger dog though that has a higher capacity for weight this would be phenomenal!
Finally we looked at the Front Range. The Front Range is sort of in between the sidewinder and palisades packs. It is structured similarly to the sidewinder with a bigger saddle bag that has a strap to secure it to the harness so there isn’t any flopping. We tried the small on our Skye and while we liked the size of the bags and harness, the harness itself was way too big for her! We were back to a fitting issue.
We hunted everywhere for different sizes to try on and different packs. We finally found an X-Small in HomesAlive to try on her and it fit perfectly! We were so happy…..then we looked at the price tag and went, crap. It’s hard to justify an almost $100 backpack for a pup. That’s almost what we spent on my pack! It was a very hard pill to swallow.
Skye wrote her letter to Santa Paws and asked for this pack and lo and behold Santa shared that information with the family and she received a special Christmas present from Grandpa R and Grandma V – Ruffwear Front Range in X-Small!
And she put it to use at Silver Star right away!
Stay tuned for more adventures as we embark on new journeys and revisit old favourites with new eyes.
Happy tails!
ASR Adventures 