In Pictures: Buddy the dachshund and his innovative shoulder harness
Canadian inventor came up with collar that more evenly distributes pressure on dogs
Roxanne Pettipas is the inventor of the Buddy Belt, a canine collar that takes the pressure off a dog’s neck and distributes it across the shoulders instead. She is shown here with her 17-year-old dachshund, Buddy. Ms. Pettipas has built an international business, called Class Art Productions Inc., that has grown in a decade to nearly $800,000 a year in sales from $80,000.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
How did she come up with the Buddy Belt? “It started when Buddy was young,” Ms. Pettipas says. “He was wearing a neck collar and choking. I thought it was allergies, but he really was choking, so I decided to design a harness myself, which I made out of tire rubber.”
Ms. Pettipas is shown with the company’s general manager, Steve Beamish. Mr. Beamish, a former fashion communications student at Toronto’s Ryerson University, has designed many of the company’s belts. The pair often attend pet industry trade shows in the United States and Europe.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
Production manager Michelle Hismesh sews a small harness at the Buddy Belts office and workspace in the factory in a funky industrial building in Toronto’s Queen Street West district.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
A leather tag is branded with the Buddy Belt’s website address.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
Ms. Pettipas and her team offer two product lines – a made-in-Canada leather harness that sells for as much as $160 mostly through website and direct sales at public events, and a cheaper synthetic product called BB2 that’s sold at pet shops and big box stores.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
Customers order the deluxe leather models from the company’s website or from booths at street events such as Toronto’s Woofstock.
Buddy is never far from Ms. Pettipas’ side at the Queen West headquarters. He figures prominently in the company’s marketing, and already Ms. Pettipas and Mr. Beamish have been planning for the time when he is no longer around. They have commissioned a local animator to develop a Buddy character, much in the way that KFC animated its founder Colonel Harland Sanders after he passed away.