Dog PFD recommendations

Does anyone have a recommendation for PFDs for my lab?
Seems like a 2 handle one would be best.

We have one of the generic shark shaped ones from Amazon for our poodle. He can swim without it and almost floats too high with it on, so he swims a little awkwardly, but it's not much of an issue.

It's a single handle and he can be lifted just fine by it (assuming you have the strength to lift a 55 lb dog one handed). It's not an ideal lifting method as it does kinda squish the air out of him, but he doesn't mind it.

I use this double handle PFD for our lab. Got it on Amazon.

Outward Hound Granby Splash Orange Dog Life Jacket, Large

rfdvm said:

Does anyone have a recommendation for PFDs for my lab?
Seems like a 2 handle one would be best.

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We're dog-less just now, but I think we used Outward Hound models.

Lifting handle, important. Good ribcage support on the underside, ditto.

This was for a Pretty Good Pyrenees and a couple of Golden Receivers... so we needed lifting capability that helped us but didn't hurt them at the same time.

-Chris

I did a little digging, and although I'm not sure it's the same brand, the PFD our dog wears looks just like this: https://www.amazon.com/Queenmore-Ri...4134&sprefix=dog+pfd+shark,aps,95&sr=8-2&th=1

rslifkin said:

I did a little digging, and although I'm not sure it's the same brand, the PFD our dog wears looks just like this: https://www.amazon.com/Queenmore-Ri...4134&sprefix=dog+pfd+shark,aps,95&sr=8-2&th=1

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I like the looks of that one. I may look again for a decent life jacket for my dog. It's tough to find a preserver for a tall slender 4 pound poodle. Her current walking harness was meant for a ferret.

Dogs Float!

We’ve been using a “”RuffWear” Pfd for a few years now. Our dog is on the small side and wears an XS @18 pounds, but we’ve met other boaters with much larger dogs using this style. Never heard anything but good about the product. As you can see Zelda is more than happy to wear her PFD all the time, and yes she’s fallen overboard a time or two just to test it out!

Thank you!

We were using Ruffwear but we had problems with our beagle working his way out of it. We are now using Bay Dog https://baydog.com/collections/life-jackets

bottomscraper said:

We were using Ruffwear but we had problems with our beagle working his way out of it. We are now using Bay Dog https://baydog.com/collections/life-jackets

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I looked at all mentioned in this thread. Yours is the only one with flotation/support along the chest. Besides flotation when retrieving Fluffy you are lifting him by the chest/stomach and not neck and chest. For me yours is the best. Also the most expensive.

bottomscraper said:

We were using Ruffwear but we had problems with our beagle working his way out of it. We are now using Bay Dog https://baydog.com/collections/life-jackets

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I looked at all mentioned in this thread. Yours is the only one with flotation/support along the chest. Besides flotation when retrieving Fluffy you are lifting him by the chest/stomach and not neck and chest. For me yours is the best. Also the most expensive.

Cargile said:

I looked at all mentioned in this thread. Yours is the only one with flotation/support along the chest. Besides flotation when retrieving Fluffy you are lifting him by the chest/stomach and not neck and chest. For me yours is the best. Also the most expensive.

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In practice, the one I linked does end up lifting by the chest, not the neck. It's hard to say on flotation though, as our dog floats pretty well to start with. With the vest on, he floats high enough in the front that his front paws break the surface as he paddles around.

rslifkin said:

.....as our dog floats pretty well to start with......... .

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Fluffy may be more aptly named Fatty

Cargile said:

I looked at all mentioned in this thread. Yours is the only one with flotation/support along the chest. Besides flotation when retrieving Fluffy you are lifting him by the chest/stomach and not neck and chest. For me yours is the best. Also the most expensive.

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No, the one I referred to has support under his chest and stomach area and lifts by that not the neck and the chest. It does a great job of spreading out the weight so it isn’t concentrated in a small area. It has a sort of stretch fabric that goes under the belly and velcros together. Then there are 2 snap straps under the chest and belly.

Outward Hound Granby Splash Orange Dog Life Jacket, Large

Cargile said:

Fluffy may be more aptly named Fatty

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If you meant ours, not at all. He's got great self control with food and keeps himself just heavy enough not to be called skinny no matter how much food we offer. But he's a poodle, so he's a pretty light build with big lungs (making him fairly low density).

rslifkin said:

If you meant ours, not at all. He's got great self control with food and keeps himself just heavy enough not to be called skinny no matter how much food we offer. But he's a poodle, so he's a pretty light build with big lungs (making him fairly low density).

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Of course I meant yours and it was a joke. Fat is lease dense than water. You described Fluffy/Fatty as floating pretty good or something like that. It was a joke. A thousand pardons if I insulted your dog.

Cargile said:

Of course I meant yours and it was a joke. Fat is lease dense than water. You described Fluffy/Fatty as floating pretty good or something like that. It was a joke. A thousand pardons if I insulted your dog.

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No problem. So many dogs are overweight that it's a pretty easy assumption to make. And most breeds are denser than a poodle anyway. We just met a friend's golden retriever that's about the same size as our dog, but almost 20 lbs heavier. Still not overweight, but he's built much more solidly.

Comodave said:

No, the one I referred to has support under his chest and stomach area and lifts by that not the neck and the chest. It does a great job of spreading out the weight so it isn’t concentrated in a small area. It has a sort of stretch fabric that goes under the belly and velcros together. Then there are 2 snap straps under the chest and belly.
Outward Hound Granby Splash Orange Dog Life Jacket, Large

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You are so very right. I can see why you say it lifts from the chest/stomach due to the positioning of the handles across the back. I must say though however functional it may be it reminds me of body armor. I would never subject my pooches to canine ridicule.

We have 135lb Newfoundland we love the Ruff Wear Life jackets (he is water rescue dog naturally and swims great but we put life jacket on if gets really ruff or when doing from mother ship to dingy to shore when he was younger and would jump out or fall off dingy when excited.
https://ruffwear.com/collections/dog-life-jackets

Glad to have come across this thread. Our girl a 95 pound lab took an unexpected dip last summer while trying to get aboard the boat. We try to keep her nails trim, but were a bit lax. When she jumped onto the wet swim platform with long nails, well, lets say she slide into home plate and kept on going. We use the PetStep boarding ramp from the dock to the boat that works great. The issue was, even with the life jacket on, I couldn't pull my 95 lb wet soggy dog back up on to the swim platform that sits a bit high off the water. I had to get help from a fellow boater to get her out. I'm trying to come up with a portable system that could work to get the dog out of the water in a pinch beyond my getting into the water and trying to convince her to climb the swim ladder Looking for suggestions.

Pet loader H2O

For those we large dogs we installed a Pet loader H2O XL and it is game charge as it is not only quick to deploy but easy for your dog to get on solo and back on the boat…has been super helpful with our 140 Newfoundland as there is. I way to life him out if he falls in but since he swims we trained him pretty easily to get out using it on his own…


https://www.petloader.com/product/pet-loader-h2o/

AboveBlue said:

I'm trying to come up with a portable system that could work to get the dog out of the water in a pinch beyond my getting into the water and trying to convince her to climb the swim ladder Looking for suggestions.

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There's a ramp on the market, one end attaches to the boat, the other floats, and it apparently has enough traction to let a dog walk up it onto the boat.

Don't know (remember) brand name, but one of our boat neighbors kept one deployed in the marina so he could use it to train his hunting dogs. Seemed to work great... they were very athletic dogs, though.

-Chris

That ramp is/was called dog docks I have happy to sell it as it did not work well for our dog 140lbs Newfoundland and swim platform was 18” off the water making for to step of an angle
Anyone with smaller dog and lower boat want for cheap send me a message

Thanks for the impute, I'll check them out. May just try to build my own concoction if I can find a solution on the market.

AboveBlue said:

Glad to have come across this thread. Our girl a 95 pound lab took an unexpected dip last summer while trying to get aboard the boat. We try to keep her nails trim, but were a bit lax. When she jumped onto the wet swim platform with long nails, well, lets say she slide into home plate and kept on going. We use the PetStep boarding ramp from the dock to the boat that works great. The issue was, even with the life jacket on, I couldn't pull my 95 lb wet soggy dog back up on to the swim platform that sits a bit high off the water. I had to get help from a fellow boater to get her out. I'm trying to come up with a portable system that could work to get the dog out of the water in a pinch beyond my getting into the water and trying to convince her to climb the swim ladder Looking for suggestions.

Click to expand...

Radar likes wearing his PFD. It has 2 handles so lifting him is pretty easy even though he is 90 pounds. He went in one time when it was raining so the swim platform was a bit slippery. He went to jump onto the dock but his back feet slid so he didn’t get all the way onto the dock and went over backwards into the water. We added a swim platform extension and then had SeaDek put everywhere that we walk. Now he, and my wife, don’t slip and slide at all. It really makes a difference in nonskid. We love his PFD that I mentioned above. When we got it I would put it on him and give him a treat. Then I would pick him up and carry him around and another treat. He will do anything for a Mini Milkbone. Now when we get his PFD out he stands there and sorta sticks his head out so you can put it over his head.

Cargile said:

You are so very right. I can see why you say it lifts from the chest/stomach due to the positioning of the handles across the back. I must say though however functional it may be it reminds me of body armor. I would never subject my pooches to canine ridicule.

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Personally I don’t care what it looks like as long as it works. I am a function over form kinda guy.

To add a bit on our PFD usage, our dog (Xander) wears his for dinghy rides and swimming, but normally when on board he's not allowed on the side decks unattended, so we don't make him wear it all the time. He does wear a harness full-time though and when he's on the upper deck with us we usually leave a short leash clipped to it so he's easier to grab if needed.

He does wear shoes on the boat as well for better grip on the decks (he slides too much to safely jump on/off the boat without them). The only good picture I have of him with his PFD on is from the first time we took him swimming though. And here's one of him sleeping with his shoes on.