Meet Jake: How PAWD Began
Every brand like this one has an origin story about a dog. Most of them are invented. This one is not, so it is worth telling properly.
A pomapoo from Sydney
Jake is a pomapoo, which is a pomeranian crossed with a poodle, which in practice means a small opinionated animal with the coat of a much larger one and absolutely no sense of his own size.
He came home to a flat in Ultimo, a few streets back from Darling Harbour. City dog from the start. He learned to walk on concrete, to ignore buskers, to treat the lift as a personal elevator, and to lose his mind, reliably, at the sound of a skateboard.
The eviction
When Jake was one, the rental changed hands and the new lease did not allow dogs.
If you have been through this in an Australian capital city you know how it goes. The listings that say 'pets considered' mean nothing. The inspections where you mention a dog and watch the agent's face do the arithmetic. We looked for weeks. We did not find anywhere.
So Jake went to his grandparents in Wollongong. It was meant to be temporary.
He never came back, and that turned out to be the point
He has lived there ever since. He has a yard now instead of a lift, and an escarpment instead of a harbour, and two people who are home all day, which from a dog's perspective is an unambiguous upgrade.
What nobody predicted is what he would become for the rest of us. The house in Wollongong is now where everyone turns up. Three generations, most Sundays, nominally for lunch. Jake is the reason it is a standing arrangement rather than an occasional one.
He is the one rock in it. The one uncomplicated source of good in a family that, like every family, has had years that were not good. He does not know he is doing it. He is just extremely pleased to see each of us, individually, every single time, as though it has been a decade.
What that has to do with collars
When a dog is doing that much work in a family, the drawer of failed collars starts to feel less like an annoyance and more like a question.
The clip that rusted. The webbing that frayed at the D-ring. The lead that let go on a wet footpath, with a car idling at the kerb, and the two seconds afterwards that we both remember. We went looking for better and found a market that mostly sells either cheap things that fail or expensive things that are the same cheap thing with a logo on it.
PAWD is the attempt at the third option. An Australian brand, run out of Sydney, with a range we choose one product at a time and describe honestly. We say what each piece is made of. We photograph the actual product. We write sizing guides that tell you where to put the tape measure.
We are not going to tell you our leather comes from a village in Italy, because it does not. What we will tell you is exactly what each thing is, so you can decide.
Questions people ask
Is PAWD an Australian brand? Yes. We are based in Sydney. The range is designed and selected here and manufactured by a specialist pet accessory maker overseas.
Is Jake real? Yes. Pomapoo, Sydney-born, Wollongong resident, approximately four kilograms of opinion.
Where does the name come from? It is what the whole thing comes down to. A paw, and a dog putting one on your knee while you are trying to do something else.
What size collar does Jake wear? Extra small, 20cm to 28cm, which is a humbling measurement for an animal who believes he is a wolf.
