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 wearing the coat of a much larger one and carrying 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 day one. He learned to walk on concrete, to ignore buskers, to treat the lift as a private elevator, and to completely lose the plot, every single time, 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 done this in an Australian capital city you already know how it goes. The listings that say "pets considered" mean nothing at all. The inspections where you mention a dog and watch the agent's face quietly do the arithmetic. We looked for weeks. We found nowhere.
So Jake went to his grandparents in Wollongong. Temporarily, obviously.
He never came back, and that turned out to be the point
He has lived there ever since. A yard instead of a lift, an escarpment instead of a harbour, and two people who are home all day, which from a dog's point of view is an unambiguous promotion.
What nobody saw coming is what he would become for the rest of us. The house in Wollongong is now where everybody turns up. Three generations, most Sundays, nominally for lunch. Jake is the reason that 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 has no idea he is doing it. He is simply thrilled to see each of us, individually, every time, as though it has been a decade and he had given up hope.
What any of this has to do with collars
When a dog is doing that much work in a family, a drawer full of failed collars stops being an annoyance and starts being a question.
The clip that rusted after one summer. The webbing that frayed where it met the D-ring. The lead that let go on a wet footpath in Ultimo, with a car idling at the kerb, and the two seconds afterwards that both of us still remember. We went looking for better and found a market split cleanly in two: cheap things that fail, and expensive things that are the same cheap thing with a logo stuck on top.
Pawd is the attempt at a third option. An Australian brand, run out of Sydney, with a range chosen one product at a time and described honestly. We say what each piece is made of. We photograph the actual product, not a prettier cousin of it. 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 make your own call.
Questions people ask
Is Pawd an Australian brand? Yes. We are based in Sydney. The range is designed and selected here and made by a specialist pet accessory maker overseas.
Is Jake real? Yes. Pomapoo, Sydney-born, Wollongong resident, roughly four kilograms of pure 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 is convinced he is a wolf.
