Gear Review: Ruffwear Swamp Cooler

Robin has boundless energy in cool weather, but in the heat he's a different dog. Earlier in the summer, I reviewed Alcott's cooling bandana, and we also purchased him a Ruffwear Swamp Cooler cooling vest, one of the most popular dog cooling products. Unlike the Alcott bandana, which is filled with cooling beads, the Swamp Cooler uses evaporative cooling: it's made of an absorptive material that slowly releases water to evaporation after a soaking. The evaporating water takes body heat with it, keeping the dog cool.

Robin stalking the sun in his cooling vest

Fit: 4/5 Robin is between sizes in Ruffwear gear: his Approach pack is an XXS, while his climate changer is an XS, and both fit him almost perfectly. His Swamp Cooler is an XS, but it fits him a little loosely. Bigger is better on a product like this one, so we chose the XS for good back and side coverage. However, the belly panel of the XS vest is a little wide for Robin's chest, and water plus friction equals irritated skin: by the time we realized what was happening, he had scabs in both armpits. Fortunately, a temporary hair band fix works well to keep the vest away from his front legs. I do have to monitor the positioning of the hair band, which slipped on a recent hike and gave him a new set of blisters, but it helps me pin down the correct spot for a permanent sewn fix.

A hair band around the belly panel of the vest keeps it from rubbing Robin's armpits

Design: 3/5 The vest is comprised of an absorptive core, a gray mesh lining and a tough, fine mesh light gray shell. The absorptive core soaks up a fair amount of water but doesn't hold it as well as I hoped- I expected it to be a highly technical layer that locked in and slowly released water, but maybe that is beyond today's technology. Instead it's more like a big sopping wet sponge- any pressure on the vest causes water to drip out even after being wrung out. Oddly enough, the outer layer isn't very absorbent, so it's hard to re-wet the vest using a hydration pack on the trail since the water just runs off. The open weave of the shell and liner allows sand to become trapped inside the vest, which never seems to rinse out fully. The inner liner also picks up foxtails, which become lodged in the absorptive core and have to be threaded back out.

No range of motion loss here.

The vest is cut for full coverage, and and fastens simply with one buckle on either side. The buckles are positioned deeply between two flaps of the vest to prevent accidental skin pinching, and it's sometimes hard to get them fastened on an unhappily damp dog. There's one small strip of reflective piping on the chest, which is sufficient since it's rarely hot enough at night for a cooling vest. Subtle trim and stitching gives the vest a clean, understated look. Once Robin forgets his displeasure, the vest doesn't impede him at all- it allows a full range of motion and never shifts to the side.

Robin attempting to "shake off" the vest's dampness on a brutally hot day

Function: 4/5 Robin actually is not too happy to see this vest come out, but he forgets about it shortly after it's put on. I think he dislikes the feeling of something wet being put over his head. While the Swamp Cooler doesn't completely negate the effects of hot weather, it significantly cuts back on his panting, to the extent that I wouldn't take him hiking in summer without it. I typically carry it in a plastic bag to the trailhead, and put it on there so that he'll quickly forget in the excitement of hiking. This strategy works well because the vest leaves wet patches and drips anywhere Robin goes for the first ten or fifteen minutes of wear.

We get about 1 to 1.5 hours of wear out of the vest before it's mostly dry, and the biggest drawback is that it's hard to re-wet. In drought-stricken SoCal we don't have an abundance of water along the trail, and since the shell is slightly moisture resistant it tends to shed small quantities of water dribbled from a hydration pack. In more humid climates, the evaporation would be slower, but the vest might be less effective overall since the evaporation is what makes it cool.

There's no doubt that it works: his fur under the vest is cool to the touch.

Addison re-wetting Robin's vest with his CamelBak

Durability: 5/5 The vest looks almost new after a whole summer of dust, mud and foxtails, except for some dust stains on the belly, and it rinses pretty clean no matter what Robin gets himself into. There are a few snags on the inside where foxtails were trapped, but each time I wash it up after a hike I'm amazed by how clean it gets.

Overall: 4/5 The vest has become a can't-live-without-it product for us. Despite its sand/foxtail and re-wetting drawbacks, it's been indispensable throughout this 90-110 degree summer and we've definitely done some hikes that would have been impossible without it. It's definitely on the expensive side at $59.95, but I was able to find one on sale for around $35 and would begrudgingly purchase another at full price if I needed a replacement.

Takeaways:
Good for: Any outdoor activity in warm or hot weather- this is now a mandatory product for us for any hot-weather hiking. The difference is night and day.
Not ideal for: May be less effective on very humid days.

Gear Review: Alcott Cooling Bandana

I'm thrilled to announce that Robin is now a product ambassador for Alcott! I chose several products out of their selection and received them at a significant discount.  This cooling bandana retails for $9.99 to $12.99 in sizes Small through Large.

Note: Do NOT use any cooling garment to compensate for unsafe temperatures.  No cooling product can keep your dog safe in an unsafe environment.

This is our first summer with Robin, and I was surprised by how quickly he gets tired in the heat. Where previously he was tireless, he's now lethargic at the halfway point. Even at home, he's constantly panting and seeking out cool patches of floor in our west-facing house.

I was curious to see how well a cooling product would combat this SoCal summer. There are a number of cooling products made for dogs, from bandanas to full coats, but Alcott's bandana is the first product I've seen that uses cooling bead technology. Alcott's line is meant for the casual adventurer, so the bandana isn't intended to keep a dog cool on long full-sun hikes, but I put it to the test to find its best applications.

Robin got so hot on a mid-day, 80 degree hike that I had him lie in
this tributary to cool off.  I'd already emptied and soaked his pack.

Technology: Most cooling products (for dogs and humans) use evaporative cooling, which is sort of like artificial sweating- as water in the highly absorbent garment evaporates, its phase change borrows heat from the remaining water, lowering the overall temperature of the garment. Evaporative cooling garments need to be re-hydrated as they dry; the frequency depends on the temperature and humidity.

Alcott's bandana, on the other hand, uses cooling beads, which swell and release cold after being soaked in water. Alcott doesn't give any specifics on the beads aside from mentioning that they're non-toxic. A significant advantage of cooling beads over evaporative cooling is that they stay cool a LONG time- only around the 48 hour mark do they start to dry out and shrink back down. The second big advantage is that the bandana is not wet for most of its active time, unlike evaporative cooling garments which are damp to the touch. This also means that it doesn't register as wet to dampness-averse Robin, who adores clothes but balks when his cooling vest appears.

Based on a brief test, cooling beads do seem to increase in weight more than a soaked evaporative cooling garment- with a three minute soak, the Alcott bandana tripled in weight from 8g (0.28 oz) dry to 23.7g (0.84 oz) soaked and wrung out, while Robin's Ruffwear cooling vest weighs 158g (5.57 oz) dry, and 2.3 times that- 362g (12.77 oz)- wet and wrung out.  0.84 oz is negligible for pretty much any dog in a bandana form, but this suggests that the cooling bead technology may be too bulky and heavy for a full vest.

Fit and Design: 4/5. The size Small fits Robin exactly. The bandana is made of very lightweight gray fabric with a black lining, printed logo, and velcro closure, and fastens securely. I don't prefer velcro on dog clothing because it tears up Robin's nylon collar, but I can't deny its weight and adjustability pros, and since this bandana fits Robin with the velcro matched, it doesn't snag his collar.  Our bandana has a flaw in the stitching on the bottom of the pouch.  Dry out of the package, it seemed to contain very few cooling beads, but after a few minutes of soaking, the beads expanded to plump up the pouch at the throat. The bandana is a little goofy looking when the beads are swollen, especially when it's left soaking too long and the pouch is full to bursting. Looks-wise, I think the product would be improved if they added a triangle-shaped bandana flap over the top of the cooling pouch.

Bandana testing on a late afternoon hike.
The tentative foot means that he's trying to make a critical decision.  

Cooling Power: 3/5 The most stunning thing about the cooling beads is the sheer length of time they stay cold. 48 hours of wear time without a refresh is fantastic- I hung up his bandana at the end of the day and popped it back on the next morning without re-soaking. (The bandana's cool factor is about equal to that of a wet washcloth- cold, but not freezing or damaging.) Since neither the bandana nor beads are actually wet, I don't have any concerns about him lying on our wood floors or on my side of the bed. When lounging in his well-wrung cooling vest, by contrast, he leaves a trail of drips at first, then wet spots wherever he rests.

However, though the bandana definitely does cool the area it covers, I can't be positive that it's making a significant difference in Robin's comfort level. Since it covers a relatively small area, it can't possibly compete with a full vest for cooling power and even his full vest only seems to reduce his panting to a limited extent. The fur underneath the bandana is cool to the touch, but I don't notice a major difference in his demeanor.  

A happy Robin modeling the bandana.

Overall: 3/5 No matter the technology, no bandana can compare to a full cooling vest. Because Robin's fur remained cool under the bandana, I can definitively say that the technology works. However, I can't say for sure that it makes enough of a difference in overall body temperature to recommend the bandana for trail use. It could be a good option for around the house because it's dry when in use, and it definitely has the longest wear-time of the cooling technologies. A dog with thinner hair than Robin would also likely experience more cooling.

Takeaways: 

Good for: short hikes, walks, home alone, long-term wear without refreshing, thin coated dogs, dry option for indoors.

Not ideal for: hot weather, direct sun, dogs with thick/heavy fur at the neck.

Updates: 
09/27/15 added ratings for each category and some further explanation.