Frequently Asked Questions

An independent review site for premium, utilitarian dog gear — harnesses, leashes, collars, beds, crates and car equipment. We score gear on durability rather than convenience: materials, hardware, construction, failure mode and warranty. Every product is real and currently sold, and every specification traces to a source we link to.

Against a published five-metric rubric: Materials (25%), Hardware (25%), Construction (20%), Failure mode (15%) and Warranty (15%). Scores run 0–10 per metric for an overall out of 100, and every number is justified in the text beside it. The full rubric is published on our How We Test page so you can disagree with our conclusions using our own numbers.

Not in a laboratory sense, and we will never claim otherwise. We do not have a crash sled or a chew-test rig. What we do is read the manufacturer's own specification sheets and warranty documents — not their marketing — and assess materials, hardware, construction and failure mode. Every product carries a line telling you the basis on which it was judged. We will never write 'we tested this' about something we did not test.

Because the manufacturer genuinely does not publish that specification, and we would rather tell you that than estimate it. It turned out to be one of the most useful things on the site. Ruffwear publishes no load rating on any product we checked. Blue-9 does not state its buckle material or ring type. MidWest calls its steel 'professional-gauge' and never gives a number. Those silences are worth knowing about.

Because no manufacturer in this category publishes it. We checked, and not one publishes bartack counts, box-X patterns or thread denier — the entire published record amounts to phrases like 'reflective stitching'. So when you read a review asserting that a harness is 'triple-bartacked', ask where that came from, because it did not come from the manufacturer. We will not invent it either.

Because we have no user-review data, and we are not going to invent any. Our durability score is our own editorial judgement and it is labelled as one — we do not mark it up as an aggregate rating, because it is not one. A clean page with no testimonials beats a page with fabricated ones.

Stephen V. writes everything. Not a staff byline, not a content farm — one accountable person. He is a lifelong animal lover and dedicated dog owner who started the site because he was tired of gear that failed and of review sites that could not tell him whether a buckle was cast or stamped.

No, and we will never imply otherwise. Stephen V. is an experienced dog owner — not a veterinarian, a veterinary technician, a certified trainer or a behaviourist, and he holds no professional credential in this field. Where a claim requires clinical or behavioural judgement, we cite a veterinary source and attribute it rather than putting the claim in our own voice.

Amazon affiliate commissions, and nothing else. If you buy through a link here we may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. Amazon is our only earning partner — we are in no other affiliate network and have no paid relationship with any dog gear brand.

No, and there is a concrete test of that: several of our top picks earn us nothing at all. The Lucky Duck kennel, the Saker harness and Big Barker's beds are not sold on Amazon, so we make no money when you buy them — and we still recommend them where they are the right answer. When we link to a manufacturer's own spec sheet or store, we earn nothing and the page says so.

No. We buy what we assess, and inclusion in a roundup cannot be bought. No brand has paid to appear here and none can. If that ever changes, our How We Test page will say so before a single review reflects it.

Because we only ever show a price we have live from Amazon's API, stamped with the date we fetched it. If our price data for a product is more than 48 hours old, or Amazon has no buyable offer for it, the number disappears automatically and we fall back to 'Check price on Amazon'. We would rather show you nothing than a number that might be wrong, and there is deliberately no way for a hand-written price to reach the page.

No — and the maker of the 'Chew Proof Armored' bed line says so in writing. K9 Ballistics states in its own FAQ: 'Please note that no bed is 100% indestructible.' Big Barker likewise says its covers are 'not chew-proof' and that 'a determined dog could chew through'. What you can actually buy is a bed that takes far longer to destroy, backed by a warranty that shares the risk with you.

More than the marketing does. A chew warranty costs the manufacturer money every time it pays out, so its length is effectively the maker's own estimate of how long your dog needs to destroy the bed. Across the category that estimate runs from 30 days (Primo Pads, and you pay the shipping) to a full year (Kuranda, which uniquely covers digging and scratching). Every one is a one-time replacement, and several replace the cover only, not the bed.

Almost none of them do, which is remarkable given what the crates are sold for. Gunner's lifetime warranty states it 'does not extend to cover destruction done to the product by the pet'. Lucky Duck excludes chewing and scratching. ProSelect Empire excludes 'damage caused by user or dog'. Diggs excludes dogs who chew. The one exception we found is the Impact High Anxiety crate, which carries a Lifetime Dog Damage Guarantee: 'If your dog breaks it, we'll replace it.'

No, and the difference matters enormously. 'Crash tested' can mean a brand paid a lab to test its own product and liked the result — with no obligation to publish failures. 'CPS certified' means the Center for Pet Safety, a non-profit that takes no funding from pet product manufacturers, tested it against a published protocol and listed the outcome publicly. Only three dog car harnesses have ever achieved the latter.

No — and this is the most dangerous misunderstanding in the category. Certification is issued per size, at a specific test-dog weight. There is no CPS-certified Gunner G1 Large or XL, only Small, Medium and Intermediate. In CPS's own 2013 testing, one harness passed in Small and Medium and catastrophically failed in Large. Always check the certified size, not just the brand.

BioThane publishes a 1,000 lb break strength for its Beta 520 PET material in the standard 1 in profile. But the same spec sheet rates buckle pull strength at 200 lb — the strap is five times stronger than the buckle holding it shut. So the real strength of any biothane collar is set by hardware the seller usually does not specify. The buckle is almost always the weak point, whatever the material.

No — we are not qualified to, and it would be irresponsible to try. If something is wrong with your dog, talk to your vet. If you think your dog has eaten something dangerous, contact your vet or the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center at (888) 426-4435. Our first aid guide exists, but every clinical statement in it is a direct quote from the American Veterinary Medical Association rather than anything we came up with, and it publishes no dose for any substance.

Tell us and we will fix it. Corrections are the most valuable email we get. Email Info@houndandfield.com with the page and, if you can, the source that contradicts us — we check corrections against the manufacturer's own documentation, and if the error was material we note the correction visibly rather than quietly editing it away.