Do dog life jackets have the same ratings as humans?
I'm looking into purchasing a dog life jacket for kayaking with our Shetland Sheepdog puppy, when he is fully grown (6months, he's currently almost 4months).
Ideally this will be for rough water such as the sea, as potentially on calm water like the canals he may be ok swimming. However he is long haired so swimming may get tiring without the jacket for him.
When looking for my own life jacket I found the safety ratings confusing (first time purchase!) Do dog life jackets have the same / similar ratings to human life jackets?... Also What rating would be recommended for a mix of sea, canal and lake activity?
Edit: here he is in his new jacket
This post was sourced from https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/q/8485. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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As far as I can tell dog life jackets do not have different ratings as for human life jackets.
All the models I have seen in a brief search seem designed for the situation where your dog is conscious, can keep themselves afloat, relatively to land and therefore assistance if needed.
Additionally, I suspect due to dog life jackets being a relatively niche product no standards will have been made and standards from human life jackets won't easily carry over.
It seems the main concern of manufacturers is the size of the dog. As dogs come in a wide variety of shapes and weights this seems reasonable and just as for humans a poorly fit life jacket could cause lots of problems for dogs.
This post was sourced from https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/a/8488. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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