It all started when we found a dog in a dumpster...
It was 2008 and Jen and I had full class loads, multiple jobs and 10’s of dollars in our account. We had also just started training for the Lotoja, a 200 mile bike ride from Logan, Utah to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Everything was going according to plan.
But then we pulled a dehydrated, malnourished, scared puppy out of the garbage…and everything changed. We decided to let “Dumpster Daisy” stay “for the weekend” which turned into 17 years before we could even blink.
What can we say? She knew how to play the game and we were suckers.
We were already stealing time to ride the few miles we could, but our hearts would still break when we burst through the door after a long day at work or school and hopped into our cycling gear while Daisy wildly celebrated our arrival by dancing excitedly around our ankles, only to then watch us ride away into the distance. Watching her sad, fluffy head peering out of the living room window took all the fun out of every outing.
If we were going to keep riding, we would have to figure out a way for Daisy to tag along.
Idea number one was the same any reasonable human would have, to let Daisy run alongside and get some valuable exercise. That worked…for about a mile before she collapsed in the weeds with a look that clearly said, “I’ll die right here before I take ONE MORE STEP.” With our ride cut short, our only option was to carry her back home – which was easier in theory than in practice. Daisy had the time of her life, throwing her weight from side to side, tongue flapping in the wind while I discovered that a squirming dog in an armpit made gripping the handles of a road bike extremely difficult which all amounted to a great way to die painfully.
After looking death in the eye, we began to experiment with carriers.
First, we stuffed Daisy in a regular school backpack and zipped it up with her head poking out the top. Even on short rides the zippers slipped open dangerously, even with zip ties and tape, while Daisy sunk uncomfortably into a puddle on the bottom of the pack over and over with no support keeping her upright. Nope.
Next, we visited a local pet store and found a small variety of options in the form of front carriers, side slings, rear-facing carriers, and several styles that completely enclosed the dog inside. Giggling, we selected a kangaroo pouch-looking front carrier, ran home, donned our cycling garb, snapped the most ridiculous blackmail picture ever and took off on a ride.
Having Daisy on the front badly interfered with the mechanics of pedaling, bumping into our knees and jostling her around like a paint mixer. Funny, but unsafe. On to the next.
To quickly summarize the essence of the exceptionally lengthy quest we had launched that ended up spanning several years and dozens of attempts, none of which resulted in a perfect solution, the sling threw off our balance and made one shoulder ache for days, the rear-facing carrier made Daisy motion sick and from the confines of the enclosed carrier, she whined and threw her weight around, unable to see who was carrying her or where she was going.
After mounting failures, we were forced to conclude that pet carriers in their current form were simply too uncomfortable, too complicated or lacked the security to keep a friendly dog like Daisy from jumping out to greet every single passerby.
One day, in a fit of discouragement (or madness), we stuffed Daisy into a simple drawstring bag which cinched clumsily around her torso, leaving the upper half of her body hanging somewhat precariously out the top allowing her to swing a little too much from side to side for our liking. Furthermore, the thin ropes that served as shoulder straps cut into our collarbone but despite these imperfections, the subsequent ride shocked us by being superior to anything we had tried to that point. So much so that for the next few months a free swag bag became our go-to carrier, bruised shoulders, unwieldy passenger, multiple readjustment stops and all. All worth it to have that fuzzy head peering lovingly over our shoulders.
After a few months, Jen got tired of looking at my purple clavicles and decided that something better had to exist. Ever the pragmatist, she began by compiling a list of what had and had not worked thus far including details like, “Sliding zipper - Find new zipper location” and “Bag not balanced – too short/too top-heavy”. When a rough sketch came into focus that did a fairly good job of resolving most of our ongoing issues (at least on paper) she grabbed some duck cloth from the store, cut the shoulder straps off the old school bag, pulled out her sewing machine and spun straw into gold in the form of the very first, very prehistoric K9 Sport Sack.
From the first ride, it was a dream. We had finally found the carrier that met our lofty standards of comfort, security and balance. Many times we would arrive home from work or school to find Daisy sprawled out on top of her janky prototype, ready to gear up and ride as far as we wanted to go.
We are admittedly slow, so for years the thought never crossed our minds that others might also be seeking what we had found, until one pivotal day when a car nearly ran us off the road as the driver excitedly shouted out his window, “WHERE DID YOU GET THAT CARRIER?!?” We explained that it was homemade, to his clear disappointment, but before driving off he uttered the words that planted the seeds for everything that came next:
“I have been looking for a carrier just like that for years and thought that someone finally made one for all of us who want to take our dogs everywhere.”
That earnest phrase bounced around our minds constantly over the next three years as we finished graduate programs, began stable careers and added 2 ½ kids to our family. After countless rides and wearing the topic out in endless discussion, it finally got the best of us and we tentatively sent our one and only sample off to a professional prototypist. A little polishing later and suddenly we were borrowing money from Jen’s dad for a small production run of 100 bags to debut at an upcoming local pet show.
With the understanding of all the ways our lack of business experience could have brought the whole affair down still a few years off, we took our borrowed money, modest inventory and naiveté down to the local fairgrounds for the public unveiling of a minimalistic product we had so eloquently named “The K9 Sport Sack”.
We watched the gates open with raw nerves as Daisy and I cruised the grounds on a bike, nervously handing homemade marketing materials to everyone who pointed or smiled at this weirdo wearing a dog on his back. As people began to trickle over to our booth, our pent-up anxiety eroded into joyful relief as the first few K9 Sport Sacks ever made were sold. Excitement, however, turned to shock when the trickle became a flood and by early afternoon every single K9 Sport Sack was sold out and we were frantically taking backorders and trying to figure out how to get more.
Years have passed since that first local show. With stable careers quickly supplanted by a chaotic adventure and a new dream of giving the world a way to take their best friend everywhere, we threw ourselves into the wacky world of pets and their loving owners, discovering the coolest assemblage of people/animals on planet earth. As our customers increased, the feedback rushed in and with every request and bit of advice the K9 Sport Sack itself evolved from unilateral simplicity to multi-faceted inclusivity, making it one of the most versatile and interactive pet carriers ever made…and it is still getting better.
When placed on a scale it is starkly apparent that pet owners have done far more for us than we have for them. Although full reciprocity would take a lifetime, we maintain a goal to give back as much as we can to this world that has given us so much. Thank you for including us in your world and for enriching ours in turn.
