{the dog blog of Outside magazine}

Why Dogs’ Feet Don’t Get Cold

Anyone who reads Outside knows that one of the best backcountry tools a man can have is his dog. Our own K9 editor, Grayson Schaffer, has exhibited the varied merits of canine utility on many occasions. But the unbelievable news last week that a dog named Oly not only survived an avalanche that killed his [...]

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Super-Powered Winter Coats for Dogs

Working hypothesis: All pets are superheroes in disguise. Evidence I’ve gathered includes watching a friend’s cat successfully run sideways up a cement wall (like Spidey) and discovering a black dog’s technique of disappearing into the shadows to eat another dog’s food (invisibility!). The primary power of my dog, Biscuit—a mix of indeterminate origin, perhaps Chihuahua/rat [...]

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P.L.A.Y.'s denim lounge bed

A Better-Looking (And Sleeping) Bed

The problem with most dog beds is that they look like, well, dog beds. They’re basically round (or square) pillows that squash down into wafers after a few month’s use—or, worse, get chewed to pieces in the matter of a few days.

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Ultimate Adventure Dog: The Chihuahua

Let me start by saying that there’s no such thing as the “ultimate adventure dog.” In fact, I believe that all dog breeds are worthy of the “adventure dog” moniker.
Even—dare I say it—Chihuahuas. Yes, Chihuahuas.
I wouldn’t have believed this possible, though, until I met Cosette. And even then, when I first laid eyes on her [...]

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Doggy Bike Carrier

OK, here’s the conundrum. You want to bike to work, but you also work at one of those exceptionally cool companies that lets you bring your dog to work. You can either teach your dog to heel perfectly beside you, even in heavy traffic (extremely dangerous), or … you can get one of these new [...]

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Ultimate Adventure Dog Smackdown: The British Labrador Retriever

Ah, Josh, the old damnation by adulation trick. But let’s face it, you just can’t help talking about Labs.
As dogs go, I prefer the ones that can wear their mud, pull shotgunned ducks from the freezing marsh, and show up for drinks at Spago without so much as a bath. (No offense, Jack, but the [...]

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Aussie Shepherd vs. Labrador: A battle of the breeds

First things first, I don’t own an Australian shepherd. I don’t even own a dog. I live in an apartment, in New York City, with an 18-month-old boy and at the moment my 1,000-square-feet can only handle one semi-tame animal. This puts me at a decided disadvantage against Grayson, who lives with a pack of [...]

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Always Bet on the Underdog: Ten Lessons from the pheasant camp that is actually a dog camp

Some people have Burning Man. For the last two years, I’ve cleared my schedule and made the 17-hour drive north to a certain repurposed mine-foreman’s house in North Dakota. On the agenda for the week: pheasants. My editor recently asked me if I was really taking a vacation and driving cross-country just to kill things—again. [...]

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Danger: Let me just slip into something more comfortable

It’s Like a Bathrobe for a Dog

If you’ve ever experienced that problem of a wet or muddy dog messing up your furniture or car upholstery, here’s a solution from same folks who make the FURminator fur remover. The new FUR Dry wearable dog towel simultaneously dries your dog’s fur and keeps it from making contact with, well, anything you don’t want [...]

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Dogs Make Us Human

Next week, wildlife photographer Art Wolfe releases a compilation of his favorite dog photos from around the world. With and introduction captions and intros by noted dog-book author Jeffrey Masson, Dogs Make Us Human ($30, Bloomsbury) illustrates the universal bond between humans and dogs.
“Our relationship with dogs is the single most important symbiotic relationship between [...]

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Training

Always Bet on the Underdog: Ten Lessons from the pheasant camp that is actually a dog camp

Some people have Burning Man. For the last two years, I’ve cleared my schedule and made the 17-ho

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Swag the Dog

Super-Powered Winter Coats for Dogs

Working hypothesis: All pets are superheroes in disguise. Evidence I’ve gathered includes watching

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Who's Cutest?

Aussie Shepherd vs. Labrador: A battle of the breeds

First things first, I don’t own an Australian shepherd. I don’t even own a dog. I live

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Media

Dogs Make Us Human

Next week, wildlife photographer Art Wolfe releases a compilation of his favorite dog photos from a

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Your Questions

Snakebit! What Next?

I remember thinking that a rattlesnake sure can coil up fast, but that was just during the moment b

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