Why We Started Kegdog
Updated: Sep 29
Kegdog started in 2018 because our Dalmatian, Enzo, kept breaking collars.
He was only a year old when he broke his third one.
At the time, we had not long left university and were saving for our first home. We didn’t have the money to keep buying increasingly expensive collars and simply hoping the next one would be better.
We also weren’t the only people having the same problem. A number of our friends had young dogs too, all different breeds and coat types, and many of us were looking for the same thing: a collar that was strong, well made and reasonably priced, without feeling like a gamble.
With design and engineering backgrounds, we thought we could make something better ourselves.
We wanted something strong that we could actually trust
Durability was the original problem.
There were strong collars available, but many were mass-produced and factory made. Spending more did not necessarily give us confidence in the materials, construction or how long the collar would last.
We wanted to know exactly what went into the final results.
That meant choosing the materials ourselves, learning how to make the collars properly, and being responsible for the finished result rather than relying on something made anonymously somewhere else.
That principle has stayed with Kegdog ever since.
Why we chose leather
We knew there were cheaper ways to make a strong collar.
Synthetic materials, for example, can be inexpensive and extremely tough. But it didn’t solve the problem for every dog. Our group of friends had dogs with very different coats, neck shapes and builds, and we wanted something that could work across a much broader range.
Leather made sense to us because it is strong, natural and incredibly versatile.
It can be made narrow or wide, rolled or flat, shaped for hounds, lined for additional structure, or adapted into slip and martingale designs.
But we had concerns about leather too.
Where had it come from? What animal was it from? What were the welfare standards? How far had it travelled before reaching us?
We realised that if we bought the hides ourselves, we could answer those questions.
Picking and buying our own hides gave us control not just over the quality of the leather, but over whether we were comfortable with its source.
Why we make everything ourselves
There was another reason we did not want to simply design a collar and send it somewhere else to be manufactured.
We wanted responsibility for the finished product to stay with us.
When somebody working in a large factory makes one collar among thousands, they may never know the customer who eventually uses it. They have no relationship with the brand and no personal stake in what happens to that collar afterwards.
We do.
Kegdog is our business. We have made the decisions from the beginning, and our names are attached to the finished product.
Making our products ourselves means we control the process from material selection through to the finished collar, lead or tag.
Designed, made and finished in Bolsover, Derbyshire, UK.
For us, that means something very different from simply being “designed in Britain”.
Why our collars are made to measure
One of the biggest advantages of making everything ourselves is that we do not have to work in standard sizes.
We already hold the leather, hardware and tools. Making a collar at 37cm instead of 40cm does not require a different factory production run in our case, we can just alter.
So why would we make somebody choose between a small and a medium if neither is quite right?
Dogs are constantly described as being “between sizes”. We never liked the idea that
somebody should spend good money on a collar only to find their dog falls awkwardly somewhere on a sizing chart.
If we can make the collar to the centimetre, we would rather do that.
This is also why we ask for measurement photographs.
A number on a tape measure only tells us part of the story. A photograph can show us neck shape, coat, proportions and how a particular measurement has been taken.
We sometimes describe this as being your dog’s personal tailor.
It sounds playful, but it is actually a fairly accurate description of how we work.
We don't manufacture in volume
Kegdog has never been built around producing thousands of identical collars.
Instead, we hold the materials needed to make a range of products and construct them as they are ordered. That gives us far more flexibility.
It allows us to make collars to exact measurements, adapt proportions, work on
bespoke pieces and develop specialist products without needing to commit to large factory quantities.
It also means we can keep improving things.
If we decide a buckle would work better in a different size, or that a particular collar needs a different proportion, we are able to make that change ourselves.
We are not waiting for the next production run.
Why sourcing still matters to us
We continue to source our leather from the UK and EU, from suppliers whose provenance we know.
We know our leather supplier personally and visit them in person.
Our hardware is cast in the UK, and we have built a long working relationship with the company that produces it. Because of that relationship, we are also able to have components customised specifically for Kegdog when we need something that is not available off the shelf.
This gives us greater control over materials and quality, but it also supports other local and family-run businesses.
Keeping more of our supply chain within the UK and Europe also helps reduce unnecessary transport and air miles.
We would much rather know who made our materials and hardware than buy anonymous components purely because they are cheaper.
How Kegdog grew beyond one broken collar
Kegdog started because Enzo broke three collars.
But once we began making our own, we quickly realised that strength was only one part of the problem.
Different dogs needed different things.
Long-coated dogs behaved differently in collars from short-coated dogs. Sighthounds had different proportions from broader-necked breeds. Some dogs suited rolled leather, some needed wider collars, some benefited from martingale or semi-slip designs, and some only needed a lightweight collar to carry an ID tag.
The range grew because the dogs were different.
That is still how we think about development now.
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