About Paths & Paws

Most gear reviews are written by people who never left their desks. Spec sheets won't tell you how a harness holds up after 200 miles of rocky scrambles. They won't mention that certain boots fall off the moment your dog hits water. And they definitely skip the part about which backpacks cause chafing by mile three.

So we test everything ourselves. Real trails, real dogs.

How we actually test gear

The protocol is simple. Take gear into the field. Use it until something breaks or until enough miles pass to trust it. We measure strap durability after river crossings, water retention in boots after creek wades, chafing patterns on different coat types, and setup times on cold mornings when your fingers barely work.

Manufacturer claims don't matter much to us. What matters is watching a 90-pound Malamute drag a backpack through three miles of dense brush, then checking every seam and buckle point to see what survived and what started fraying, because that single brutal test tells us more than any spec sheet ever could. Does that cooling vest still work after its fifth soak? Will this GPS collar hold signal in deep canyon country where cell service disappeared two miles back?

Every number on this site came from our testing. A harness that dried in 45 minutes got timed. The boot that survived 31 river crossings before the sole started separating, we counted each one.

What we believe

Dogs deserve gear that works. The kind that keeps them safe on exposed ridges and comfortable through long descents. The kind that protects paw pads on hot summer rock when every other hiker has already turned back.

We buy most of our test gear. When companies send products, we say so. But the reviews read the same either way. A bad harness is a bad harness whether we spent $80 on it or got it free.

Sometimes we get things wrong. Gear that performed well in Colorado's dry high country might fail in your humid Southern forests. A boot that fit our test dogs perfectly might not fit yours. Limitations and edge cases matter, and we try to be honest about them.

---

Meet the team

The people behind every review and trail recommendation here log serious miles with their dogs, not just on weekends but week after week, year after year, until the gear either proves itself or falls apart.

View all contributors →