Comments on: Keeping Our Dogs Safe At Sea: Outward Hound Life Jackets

By: topdog

topdog — Sat, 07 Dec 2019 22:07:14 +0000

A must-have for any liveaboard boater and their four-legged first mate. My girl and I sail a sunstar 28 asround the BC coast and a PFD for her is more of a priority than it is for me half the time.

By: SV Mary Christine

SV Mary Christine — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 02:02:31 +0000

Thank you for sharing! We’re glad you enjoyed the post and found it helpful for safety purposes. We are still very happy with the life jacket we selected for our pups!

By: Safety Equipment

Safety Equipment — Thu, 13 Nov 2014 16:18:01 +0000

Thanks author for your useful blog and great shared to Dogs Safety and Life Jackets. Really awesome post and information to safety.

By: SV Mary Christine

SV Mary Christine — Fri, 18 Apr 2014 01:35:30 +0000

Thanks Pamela!! We’re happy you found it helpful! There’s not much info out there, especially with all of the major brands side-by-side.

As for other boat features… a swim step is something we don’t have but would be really nice to have for our large dogs getting on and off the boat. We get around it just fine with the HelpEmUp harnesses (post coming soon – see our products and services page) for getting them into and out of the dinghy but if we didn’t have the harnesses it would be incredibly difficult. People talk about using a halyard or pulley – Yeah right. Its a great thought but I can’t imagine actually suspending my dog in mid air with a pulley :(

The other major feature to consider is the companionway. We have a center cockpit with two 5′ vertical ladders. Pretty impossible to lift a 75′ dog overhead several times a day. I haven’t gotten around to a post about our ‘ramp’ yet but stay tuned! We suspend the aft ladder from straps and run it onto the aft mattress where the dogs climb up the back side that is covered with outdoor carpet for traction.

I hope to post pics for the ramp soon and I’ll try to put together a few more ideas about good boat features for dogs :) Thank you for the request!!
-Jody

By: Pamela

Pamela — Tue, 15 Apr 2014 18:00:50 +0000

Really excellent review of all the factors we need to consider when looking for an offshore life jacket.

I recently bought my golden the Kurgo life jacket which I think will be great for kayaking but didn’t feel it would be quite buoyant enough for rougher conditions. I’m bookmarking this for future reference.

BTW, if you have any thoughts on boat features that are good and bad for dogs, I’d love to read it. There are lots of posts on choosing the right dog but very few on choosing the right boat.