Ruffwear  Palisades Dog Pack

We bought this pack in a small for our 41lbs Vizsla Pit. Quality is great and functionality is superb. The harness adjusts at 5 points to fit our dog perfectly. I love how the harness can be used separately from the pack itself. We use her harness when we bring her to work and sewed her "Emotional support dog" patch right onto her harness. We attach the pack and load it up with water and her other items when we go on a hike to give her extra weight to carry. I wish all dog packs came with a separate harness!! She loves wearing this pack because it gives her a job!

Bought this medium sized pack for my 50 lb. Siberian. The ability to separate the pack from the harness came in good use today. Was hiking a trail, that needed to cross a log bridge over a pretty swift deep seasonal river. No way was my dog crossing that log, and Siberians don’t usually like getting wet. Too difficult to go around and find other ways over the water. So I removed the pack off of the harness, checked the harness clips and used the back handle to support and half carry a terrified dog over the water on the log. Was able to maintain control and keep her on the log and was able to lift her over some difficult areas. If you are worried about those harness clips, don’t be, they held like champs. Got over to the other side reattached the pack back onto the harness and continued on our hike no worse for wear. This pack is 3 years old and still looks great and will hold up to 12 lbs. It is built well for the job and cinches down to reduce the profile to go through narrow areas of the trail. You don’t skimp on your equipment, why would you skimp on your best buddy? So buy this already!

We take our dog backpacking, so he needs to carry his own gear! He can carry plenty of food, his sleeping mat, first aid kit, and water with room to spare. I love that the bags detach from the harness. We frequently remove them so our boy can go for a swim or when we get into camp. We have last year's model which clips onto the pack and my only complaint was that there was no quick release function (he tends to get impatient when there's a creek to go explore!) Looks like they have modified it for this year's model. It does seem to be very sensitive to weight distribution: if one bag is even slightly heavier than the other it slips a bit to the side. This sometimes requires a little redistribution of gear while we are hiking around. My wishlist add on: A way to cinch it up if the packs are not full or to make it ride just a tad higher on his sides.

Grayson the Weimaraner went through three pet store dog packs in a single year. Seams ripped, straps broke, and they could not stand up to his energy in the woods. This bag is different: well constructed of quality, sturdy materials and it fits him well.

Sara helps out by carrying the food bowls, dog coats and some of the dog food allowing room in my backpack for a sleeping pad, and more food. The harness is comfortable for her.

I take my 4 legged fur child backpacking with me wherever possible. (California is notorious for not being dog friendly on hiking trails). I previously had a ruffware pack that made it through 3 dogs before getting a small hole in it so I decided to replace it with an updated model. I love the fact that the saddle bags detach from the pack so I can leave the harness on him when we take a break or stop for the night. It adjusts to fit well on a dog who has a big chest and tiny waist as well as my other dog who is a more uniform roundness. I like the pockets that keep the water bottles separate from the rest of the gear. Also the bottles are easy for my dog to drink from. The only complaint I have is that the clips that hold down the saddle bags can fill with dirt (or sand...) and become impossible to un-clip until rinsed out. Not hard to clean them up so they open but next to impossible to do this while the dog is wearing the pack (and difficult when on trail where you have no running water)

This is such a nice set. For a harness, my long, large dog needs the strap under the waist if we need to help her out with the back handle. And her deep chest is more than accommodated by the XL size. This pack is SO roomy, I’ve yet to fully load it. I LOVE that you can cinch it down, which helps keep the pack from flopping around or getting hung up when it’s less full towards the end of a backpacking trip. The pack stays well attached with the 4 simple attachment points, easy on and off as opposed to taking the entire harness off. Highly recommend for big dogs! Not sure I’d ever want to pack it full for a dog less than 80 lbs, it is one of the largest pack sizes out there. I prefer the Approach pack for my 60 lb dog.

Great size, fits quite a bit, but I have an 86 lb GSD who can carry some weight. I would be careful not to put more than your dog can handle into these. I loaded it at 14 lbs to start and he ended on day three closer to 6 lbs. Food, blanket, water, pad, etc - However, the only con is that the water can be hard to get to if you have the main pack full.

We upgraded to this pack and haven't looked back. Most useful feature: removable saddle bags (perfect to quick breaks instead of wrestling the entire pack harness on and off 10 times a day when backpacking. Other highlights: Multiple storage compartments on each side are thoughtfully engineered to keep the pack balanced for your pup. Another genius feature is the instruction manual sewn in to the actual pack so when you're out in the middle of no where you can remember how to buckle the darn thing. Nice to include the rubber dromedaries for water. the harness handle also seems durable and I was able to assist my 80 lb dog through some tight spots. other harnesses have failed when tested at 70 lb. Cons: Really just the price. This was a $100 upgrade from our previous dog saddlebag set up. But I really trust the brand so I'm willing to take the leap Bonus points: The back seems to be pretty water proof. My golden hopped in a river mid-hike with all of her food in ziplock inside the bag plus the first aid kid (that was a terrible idea on my part) and nothing was wet! She really did a number with doggy cannonball and everything- no noticeable moisture inside the bag- I was pleasantly surprised.

Bought this for my Border Collie. Figure I would have her carry her own weight on our backpacking trips. I live in the mountains of Idaho and we have been training her this winter. After four months one of the zippers broke. I had her up to 5lbs carry weight. A very light load. Figure after spending $150 for a dog pack, they could put decent zippers. As for the pack itself, excellent!! Broke zipper in a main compartment does not work. Hope this helps