Our dog might just be famous. Fetch Magazine just covered a story about the early days of Iron Doggy™, and we are beyond excited to see our names in print. The focus of the most recent issue of the magazine is on fitness. Fetch interviewed us because Iron Doggy™ makes the best hands-free dog leashes a runner can buy. This, at least, is the story we wish they would have told. 😉
All kidding aside, the truth is, Fetch Magazine is a publication owned by a pet insurance company called Petplan who insured our dog Zola since she was just a few months old. They interviewed us because when Zola was one, she darted out in front of a car and was seriously injured. Petplan ended up paying over $11,000 to cover her surgeries. Having that insurance brought some sanity to the trauma of witnessing our dog be hit by a car. While the article tells the story of the role pet insurance played in Zola's rehabilitation, it doesn't really describe how Iron Doggy™ managed to survive.
The dream of creating a better running leash felt pretty unimportant in comparison to seeing to our dog’s recovery. Despite the seriousness of Zola’s injuries we always believed that she would run again, that we would need a better running leash, and that we were the ones who would make it happen. Even though the inspiration for our leash was sidelined, we were able to enlist the help of several runners and their dogs to test the early mock-ups of our leash. The more we tested, the more we knew we were on to something. That inspired us to hire an industrial designer and to find a soft-goods manufacturer to work out the details of bringing our leash to market. It’s a testimony to perseverance that Iron Doggy™ survived. We also know that without Petplan having our back financially it never would have happened.
You can read all about it here (page 64 in the online edition of "Lickety Fit" in Fetch Magazine).
