Howliday Gift Guide: Inside my house

For today’s reviews, I chose three items I’ve used in the past week and one I’ve wished for this week.

1. Dosha Dog Collars

I have a thing about leather collars. I just love them- they are our dressy uniform around here. Unfortunately, with all the adorable leather collars out there it is really hard to find ones that are made for bigger dogs that aren’t covered in spikes. Lucky for me, Dosha Dogs stepped in to fill the void with their collection that is just what the doctor (me) ordered.

If you’ve seen the yellow collar on Koa in her more recent pictures, this is the one. I bought it several months ago and she still gets compliments on it on a regular basis.

2. Puppy Tweets

I was really excited to test out Mattel’s new Puppy Tweets device based on the previews, so as soon as my sample arrived I got it open and opened up a Twitter account for Brody (@BrodytheGolden). The concept is, you put the device on your pet’s collar, and a it communicates with a dongle that plugs into your computer. Based on your dog’s activity level, it sends out one of 500 pre-written tweets.

It seems to work fairly well*, though the correlation between the tweets and the activity level aren’t always clear. We’d occasionally get a tweet about tearing up a show when he was curled under my feet asleep, but for the most part the sent out messages correlate with what he was doing (the sensor is supposed to notice movement and noise and tweet accordingly). I also think the size might be a factor for smaller dogs- it’s a decent size, as you can see on the model.

Overall it’s a cute enough gadget, though I’m waiting for the ability to actually write the tweets that go out there myself- then it would really be fun.

*Update: I realized it stopped updating the Tweets last week. I reset it last night (requiring you to unscrew the back), reconnected it, and put it back on Brody. It did not update. This morning I reset it again with the screwdriver, went out of range, and it is again no longer connected. Until this product is a little less buggy and easier to individualize, it’s not something I would recommend.

3. Rasco Dog Ready Leash

As some of you know, I have a long and difficult history with poop bags. I’m always losing the bags, forgetting to bring them in the first place and having to improvise, breaking the little clippy thing that attaches to the leash, and overall just screwing things up.

That’s why I was happy to try out the Rasco ReadyLeash, one of the recent items I was provided to review. It looks like a retractable leash- but as they will tell you on the site very carefully, it’s not. The handle may look like that of a retractable, but the inside part is actually a hollow container for storing poop bags.

The leash works well as long as you like the handle style. The lead is nylon and adjusts from 4-6 feet. We got the 1 inch width version and I tried it out on Mr. Leash Brutalizer himself.

On our usual 6 foot leather lead, I wrap it around my wrist a few times and choke up on it if need be, and I was worried with the handle I wouldn’t be able to do that, but at 4 feet that was fine for Brody’s exploration and my control. The handle was also perfectly comfortable.

The leash stores a roll of biodegradable bags- each roll has 15 bags, which degrade within one year- awesome! The bags pull out easily and were easy to remove (which you don’t appreciate until you get a roll of crummy bags that you can’t rip apart, sitting on the sidewalk cursing and yanking out 5 bags while trying to tear one off.)

At the end of our walks, I take Brody up the fire trail behind our house and let him loose to drag the leash behind him. The first minute or so he did that with this lead, he had that panicked “What’s CHASING ME?” look on his face as the handle clanked over the rocks, but after that he was happy to drag his new friend up the hill, merrily skipping along behind him. I did that four times this week as my toughness test and it held up just fine. AND I didn’t have to go hunting for poop bags before we set out on the journey. Score!

4. Rubit Clip-On Dog Tag Holder

Unlike Kekoa, Brody doesn’t have one favorite collar. He has four. And every time I put a new one on (our ‘wet weather’ collar, our ‘fun’ collar, our ‘safety’ collar, our ‘walk’ collar) I forget to switch his tags over right away. I mean to, but I don’t have the appropriate heave machinery on hand right that moment to apply the 5000 psi needed to wrestle those stupid o-rings off the collar without breaking my phalanges. So I remind myself to make my husband do it when he gets home, and then 2 days later I realize I never changed them.

And this, of course, is exactly how so many dogs without tags end up in the shelter. A moment of forgetfulness, a door left open, and boom.

I’ve seen several carabiner-style dog clips like this one, and I’ve already determined they will be in the dogs’ stockings this year. That is SO much easier than what I’ve been doing, a simple click and the tags are ready to be moved. I think I’m going to order a few extra for my keys too while I’m at it.

(Note: The original link went to the DogID site, but I received a report of shopping cart problems so I changed the link. The company is aware of the issue but I don’t know if it has been resolved yet.)

FTC Disclosure: (2) and (3) were samples provided by the manufacturer as product review items. No other compensation was received for the review.

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissions 16 CFR, Part 255 Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising. Tomoson Product review & giveaway Disclosure.