Patrick Kruse, our company’s founder and leader of the pack, has a keen eye for efficiency. Given a close look at a piece of gear or an operation in progress, Patrick will find ways to increase performance. This efficient mind set keeps Ruff Wear’s operations streamlined and environmentally responsibility. Day to draw, we work in a facility that was designed to be energy efficient, using the environment for passive heating and cooling and built using sustainable building practices and materials. The same mind set inspires the Ruff Wear crew to continually improve our “green” efforts. In our near paperless office with nearly all our transactions done digitally, we've even been reusing printed sheets in our fax machine reducing our paper use yet again.

    We know that our products need to be environmentally responsible. To that end, Ruff Wear builds products that last and last, eliminating the need to continually replace gear. We've seen 10-year-old Quencher™ dog bowls that have stood the test of time. Our products use minimal packaging letting the product do the selling. Our manufacturing processes are highly efficient, getting the most of out of the resources. Cutting room scraps provide stuffing for many of Ruff Wear’s toys enforcing the credo of “reduce, reuse, recycle. ”Our Gourdo™ dog toy is made from natural latex rubber, a renewable resource derived directly from sustainable a rubber trees. For 2007 and beyond, our dedicated product development team has set a goal that each new product will incorporate some degree of sustainable practice that lessens our impact on the natural world.

    Being based in Bend, Oregon offers the employees of Ruff Wear a rich outdoor experience. To the west lie the rugged volcanic and cinder cone features of the Cascade range. In less than an hour, our dogs can be hiking along the high alpine vistas of South Sister (10,358 ft. elevation). The east opens to the vast expanse of our high desert badlands, complete with lava flows, limitless sagebrush, and Juniper trees. The outdoor lifestyle is deeply ingrained in our company, and we have an everyday opportunity to get out and explore.

    Bend also offers a portrait of an ever-changing future. Our one-time small town has experienced rapid growth as it develops into a city. Growth brings more people, more cars and traffic, more homes and development, and a downtown silhouetted by large cranes at work. As tree-filled land gives way to expanding neighborhoods, the changing landscape provides motivation to work to preserve all of things we enjoy about where we live.

    Dogs, like people, need protected wild places to play. We at Ruff Wear are committed to helping save the wild lands and waterways that provide important habitat for wildlife, and recreational opportunities for dogs and people. We are proud to announce a new partnership with The Conservation Alliance that will help us meet our need to give something back to the special places so important to our customers, both canine and human.

    The Conservation Alliance (www.conservationalliance.com) is a group of outdoor businesses that work together to protect wild places throughout North America where wildlife thrives and customers recreate. Each member company – including Ruff Wear – pays annual dues into a central fund, and the Alliance donates 100 percent of those dues to organizations working to protect wild forests, rivers, deserts, mountains and other important landscapes.

    Since launching in 1989,The Conservation Alliance has given away more than $5.3 million to grass roots conservation organizations.

With Conservation Alliance grants these groups have saved nearly 40 million acres of land, stopped or removed 26 dams, preserved access to thousands of miles of rivers and several climbing areas.

    In addition to funding environmental groups, The Conservation Alliance helps member companies get active on conservation. Through the Walking the Talk Program, the Alliance provides opportunities for companies and their employees to volunteer for grantees. We at Ruff Wear look forward to getting our hands – and paws – dirty in support of wildland protection.

    As a business that depends on the outdoors, we have an obligation to play a role in saving the open space, wilderness areas, rivers and lakes that add value to our lives. We want to look back and know that we did everything we could to preserve places for future generations…of people, wildlife, and, of course, dogs.