November 28th, 2023, Our Rocketdog Winter Coats are for sale

This is Rocketdog Rockford Rhoades in last year's coat. 

About four years ago we got tired of buying dog coats at the feed stores. Their coats were okay, but they never really worked easily and usually broke down in a year. So we started messing around with making our own. It took a while. . . .

The first attempt used reclaimed parts from all of the older coats and a used cheapo Singer sewing machine bought on Craig's List. We had received a nice "picnic" blanket from a client some years earlier and this had a nice flannel side and water resistant coating on the other. The results of that first effort were good at first. But we hadn't counted on the totally destructive nature of Basset Hounds at play.  They shredded their new coats in just a few days. The best part was that as they tore the black waterproof layer the red flannel layer showed through. Our Hounds look like the victims of an axe murderer.  But the basic design of the coat was good. Re-using strapping to hold the thing together got us into the warmer months despite the horror show. We resolved to solving the problem before the next Winter came.

We found a nice Buffalo Print at the fabric store and I bought new straps and buckles and laid out a pattern based roughly on the previous year's effort. The result was a good coat, though a bit smaller than we liked. And though we have changed the pattern a few times, and changed the way our coats were made, those early attempts are still working fairly well. We use them for our guests or use parts from them to make new coats for our dogs. But the process got easier and the coats came out better nearly every time we made one. 

Two  years ago we decided to sell our Winter Coats to those people we knew who had  adopted our puppies. So we began letting them know we had coats available and sold a few. Then last year we let a few more people know about what we were doing and  we sold a respectable number of our coats around Christmas. It seemed we had a good thing going after that.

Don't click here

This year we sold as many on our first week as we had in the previous year once we let people know about it. But this presented some new problems. Shipping them cheaply had to be figured out. A box to send them out it had to be found. We had the coats pretty well settled, but the details needed worked out. And we did it. But while we worked out the plan we found that one of the steps, the part where we put the parts into the box the coat would eventually be shipped in, offered another possibility. So we began thinking about selling the box full of parts to those interested in sewing their own coats.

We had to come up with instructions. And then we had to find a way to handle the increased traffic. But eventually we got it all working. Today I put out the first advertising for our expanded Coat project.  We're selling four sizes of Ready to Wear coats and Do It Yourself Coat kits, along with an option to make Coats and Kits for other sized dogs on an ad hoc basis.  We have a good way to handle the transactions securely and now all we need is for about fifty customers to show up and participate. 

Creekside Farm has always been pretty wide open as to what we would eventually become as a business. Coats may or may not work out. But the journey is the thing. We have out first really good product and it is being sold to the public. There's really no telling where this may go. But we're looking forward to getting there. 

If you need a coat. Head on over our Rocketdog Bassets Blog.