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Dog life jacket


fittie

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5 minutes ago, fittie said:

What are your views on dog life jackets and what is the best to get. On Amazon they range in price from under a tenner to close to £80. Our dog is not a swimmer which is a little odd but there you go.

I have never had a dog but my mate had a Malinois and a life jacket with a handle on was essential when he was on the boat.   Without it we had great difficulty lifting a dog that size (27 -28 Kg) out of the canal.

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Just now, Jerra said:

I have never had a dog but my mate had a Malinois and a life jacket with a handle on was essential when he was on the boat.   Without it we had great difficulty lifting a dog that size (27 -28 Kg) out of the canal.

I'll second that! The jacket was invaluable when pulling our 42kg GSD out of pound at Atherstone top lock! He can swim quite well, but it's the handle on the jacket that's essential. 

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When we had a Staffie, not George, his predecessor, we invested in a buoyancy aid for her. We put it on and she wouldn't move and just looked up at us as if to say, "you're joking ,right". We took it off and returned it. George the Staffie fell in a couple of times, and he was a bit chunkier than Rio, but just grabbed his collar and dragged him out. A GSD is a different story of course.

 

Im not a lover of dog buoyancy aids. We have two JRTs now and the aid would be heavier than the dogs. 

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54 minutes ago, fittie said:

Our dog is not a swimmer which is a little odd but there you go.

Flat faced dogs will actually drown in water as they can’t keep their snout above water.  If your dog is one of these there maybe a life jacket suitable for that type of dog?   One thing I’ve seen mentioned previously here is too get one with a handle as it makes getting the dog out easier.

 

edit, changed small snout to flat faced.

Edited by Robbo
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Ollie the Staffie (I'll dig a picture out later) is a passable swimmer. But we bought a life jacket for him when we went on the K&A with the Bruce Trust. Our logic was that it's one thing for Ollie to deliberately jump in after a tennis ball with a known exit; another to fall in (and maybe not be seen immediately) unexpectedly and a long way from a climbable bank.

 

Sure enough he slipped on the steel deck and fell in! The look on his face as  he paddled valiantly behind the boat was a picture. He's only(!) 16 kG but we'd have struggled to get him back on board without the handle on the life jacket. Another up-vote for that reason.

 

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12 minutes ago, fittie said:

I too think that a handle is a must but the bulk of some is a worry.

Some are quite bulky but you can get them which are not so.

 

This was Simon's when we were boaters, Available at most chandlers, and it was tested along with the handle which I can confirm was essenail when reaching down to lift him out!!

 

 

IMG_0338.JPG

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1 hour ago, fittie said:

I too think that a handle is a must but the bulk of some is a worry.

My OH was on the boat and I was on the towpath when Rusty fell in (OH half cut the engine asap) so it was up to me to pull our GSD out. There's no way I could have pulled him out just using the strength of my back, I laid down lengthwise along the towpath (it was frosty at the time ?), grabbed Rusty's lifejacket handle, and 'rolled' him out.

 

Rusty's lifejacket looks a bit small for him, when we bought it on ebay the size chart did say it would fit a St Bernard. It's the handle that's essential for us, and the jacket fits the job perfectly.

 

rusty.jpg.b7089d4f7f8a3f8f62387b70741b2b6f.jpg

 

 

Edited by Jennifer McM
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17 minutes ago, Jennifer McM said:

Rusty's lifejacket looks a bit small for him, when we bought it on ebay the size chart did say it would fit a St Bernard. It's the handle that's essential for us, and the jacket fits the job perfectly.

Exactly the same with our Lab - jacket is a bit small, handle is the key.  The buoyancy is only likely to be handy if she's unable to be recovered for quite some time - a reasonable possibility on some river stretches - and it's also handy to keep at least some of her a bit dry in the rain.

 

Same jacket - Baltic. I'd buy one again.

Edited by Sea Dog
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We have those Baltic jackets for our three but they all needed a larger size than the fitting guide indicated.  

 

We've rarely used them though, none of them like wearing any kind of coat.

 

I'm interested to know what sort of jacket you get for £80 though...

Edited by Neil2
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1 minute ago, Neil2 said:

 

 

I'm interested to know what sort of jacket you get for £80 though...

I think you could get a Peter Storm breathable waterproof from Millets. Or jacket potatoes with tuna mayo for yourself and 19 friends at the local garden center cafe? I know which my dog would prefer...

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We got a Julius K9 (a nice pink one for a girl) for our 28Kg labradoodle and it saved her life. On a narrow lock at Birmingham I left her tied on the boat but she tried to jump off anyway, fell between the boat and the lock wall. I was able to push the boat away from the wall with one hand and lift the dog out with the other, thank God for the grab handle.

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2 minutes ago, artleknock said:

We got a Julius K9 (a nice pink one for a girl) for our 28Kg labradoodle and it saved her life. On a narrow lock at Birmingham I left her tied on the boat but she tried to jump off anyway, fell between the boat and the lock wall. I was able to push the boat away from the wall with one hand and lift the dog out with the other, thank God for the grab handle.

Result! Hauling a big, wet dog out by the collar or scruff of the neck is not as easy as folk might think, particularly when the water level might be well below the edge.  I've seen those K9s on land lubbers' dogs and not quite got the requirement, but the handle is the key thing from a boating point of view, particularly for good swimmers like Labradors... or part thereof!

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1 hour ago, sueb said:

It does worry me that dogs are suffering from the heat when wearing a jacket in summer. A harness is useful although we were always able to get our gsd out by grabbing the back of his neck.

Thats a good point Sue.

I'd be interested in a proper study of life jacket bouancy. I suspect most don't offer much?

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4 hours ago, sueb said:

It does worry me that dogs are suffering from the heat when wearing a jacket in summer. A harness is useful although we were always able to get our gsd out by grabbing the back of his neck.

Unlike us human’s dogs don't perspire (much) from their bodies.  They mainly do so from their pads and by panting.  So, whilst it might seem counter intuitive to us a reflective jacket might actual aid in controlling overheating as opposed to their natural fur.  Of course it does depend on the dog’s colouration and the colour of the jacket.

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9 hours ago, sueb said:

It does worry me that dogs are suffering from the heat when wearing a jacket in summer. A harness is useful although we were always able to get our gsd out by grabbing the back of his neck.

Yes, the heat was a concern this summer, we were mostly on 'calm' rivers so he didn't have his jacket on much, knowing that if he did fall in he'd be able to swim to the bank and climb out. He is a good swimmer though. We'll probably get a harness for him before next summer. 

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We have got Syd a life jacket but he only wears it when we are on very tidal waters as it is a bit bulky and he finds moving around on the boat wearing it a bit difficult.

 

He is a very confident swimmer and knows to come to the back of the boat when he falls off it so that we can pluck him out. When he doesn't have his life jacket on he always has a harness on which is easy enough to pull him out with.

 

Syd is only a small dog though and at 7kg is easy enough to pull out one handed.

 

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Edited by Naughty Cal
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Just a quick point: these things are buoyancy aids, not life jackets.  A life jacket not only provides buoyancy but also keeps the wearer face upwards so that an unconscious casualty can breath. A subtle difference, but an important one to recognise when considering your own safety gear.

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8 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

Just a quick point: these things are buoyancy aids, not life jackets.  A life jacket not only provides buoyancy but also keeps the wearer face upwards so that an unconscious casualty can breath. A subtle difference, but an important one to recognise when considering your own safety gear.

Indeed. However is there such a thing as a "proper lifejacket" for a dog?

 

Sure they are all buoyancy aids.

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1 minute ago, Naughty Cal said:

Indeed. However is there such a thing as a "proper lifejacket" for a dog?

 

Sure they are all buoyancy aids.

No, I don't think there is a true canine life jacket and, even if there is, the examples here are all bouyancy aids.  That was my point: there's an important distinction in the function, so it's best not to use the terms interchangeably. Not correcting anyone - just pointing it out. :)

 

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