Ruffwear Front Range Harness

Some people are Ruffwear addicts.  Luckily for me and my wallet, I haven't dove that far down the Ruffwear rabbit hole, but I do think that they make quality products.  After hearing some great things about Ruffwear's Front Range Harness from friends and knowing that we would soon be moving into town and be required to do multiple walks a day, I decided to bite the bullet and get one.  

Features
- Leash attachment at the back, and an additional attachment on the front
- Bright colors!
- Padded chest area

Hudson isn't much of a puller, probably because he is small and can only pull so hard, so I haven't used the front loop with him yet.  The rest of the harness is sturdy and well stitched, so I imagine that this one will be as well.  For a front clip harness, I do like how this one fits more than my Freedom Front Clip Harness.  Maybe Hudson never grew enough for the Front Clip to fit, but I always felt that the clip on that harness was too low and the strap hindered front leg movement.   Like the Freedom Front Clip, the Ruffwear Front Range slips over the head and then is brought up behind the front legs, and then clips along the back. It is adjustable along the neck/shoulder and again behind the legs, which makes it very easy to fit.

I am not a nice owner, so I use the metal V-ring on the back to also help with poop bag holder.  Hey, he can help carry some stuff on our walk. It isn't designed to attach any packs to, but I wouldn't worry about adding something light to it.  Ruffwear has also added a velcro pouch on the back that can hold your tags, if you want, but I haven't tried it out.  

One word of warning to anyone who is familiar with Ruffwear, take a look at their harness sizing guide.  Hudson's harness is a small and it fits him great.  The harness ranges from XXS, which is a 13 - 17 inch chest, all the way up to the L/XL, which is 32 - 42 inches.

No matter how you look at it, the Ruffwear Front Range harness is well made, with lots of little extras.  We've been using it for the past month since we moved to town and it is great. I don't worry about him slipping out if we see a squirrel or that it will rub and cause hot spots or hair loss.


Ruffwear Front Range Harness

SoftPaws

We recently moved from an old house, with nice hardwood floors, to an even older house with even nicer hardwood floors.  In the previous house, I worked on keeping Hudson's nails short using a dremel and filing them, but he is a little frantic and spazzy, so it didn't work super well.  Even with nails back to the quick, he was able to scratch up the floors.  Not only that, he would go sliding around corners and my mind just kept picturing a wipe out and then something terrible like a torn ACL.

In an attempt to protect the dog from the hardwood floors and the hardwood from the dog, I decited to try out SoftPaws for dogs.  These are soft, flexible rubber caps that go over your dog's nails.  The sizing guide indicated that, at 40 lbs, Hudson was at the high end of the X-Large nails, or the low end of the XX -Large nails.  I chose to go with the X-Large, but I might try the XX-Large next time I purchase a pack, more on that later.

They shipped with USPS from California and were delivered a few days later in Ohio.  The package came with the 3 different sets that I ordered (purple & black for the local college, orange and black for Halloween, and then red and green for Christmas), and plenty of glue to secure them to Hudson's little feet.

The fist step was to wrangle Black, White, and Crazy to the ground, trim his nails, and then clip the hair around them.  Since these are secured with glue, I didn't want to glue any of his feet fur into the cap, it just sounds painful.   Hudson is pretty tolerant of having his feet handled and was pretty good about the whole ordeal.  He didn't like it, but tolerates these types of things for me, bless his heart.  In the end, I only did the front feet because I had so much glue on my own fingers that I couldn't feel what I was holding anymore.  Something to change for the next time - use less glue!

They seem to be holding up OK.  They are advertised as being good for 4-6 weeks, but a cap or two might come off, and need replaced.  It is also advertised that each kit comes with 40 nail caps, so if you have to replace a few now biggie.

Hudson's nails went on around July 22, it is now August 5.  Mr. Fussy doesn't seem to notice that the caps are on, and hasn't tried to mess with them.  Of course, as soon as we put them on, I started shoveling treats into his mouth and having him do basic tricks to keep his mind off of those strange things on his feet.  It seems to have worked.   He did lose 1 cap sometime this week, so maybe at week 1.5.  No biggie, I expected the nails to come off.  I do think they have helped him navigate through the house and not slip and slide all over, so I'd consider that aspect a major success.  The one issue I do have is that the tips of the nails have worn through and the very end of his nail is sticking out.  Not what I wanted.  I will need to pull the caps off and try again, maybe this weekend if I have a chance.  For a product that is suppose to last 4-6 weeks, I would have expected the caps to last longer than 2 weeks.  Of course, this could be due to several different things.  Mainly, I think I should have gone with the XX-large size, instead of the X-large, maybe those would have held up better.

Over all, I am pretty happy with the product.  They have done what they advertised (all though not as long), and they are really fun!  I am going to enjoy changing his nail color based on the seasons.  Of course, I know that I could also just paint his nails the color that I want, but these caps are pretty cool.

My next order, which should be in early 2017, I'll try out the XX-large caps, hopefully the fit better.