Ready Dog

Please Welcome Ready Dog as an IHEA Sponsor!

IHEA Members and Partners – Please Welcome Ready Dog First Aid Kit as an IHEA Sponsor

From the time my German Wirehair Pointer was a puppy until the day he died, he had two speeds: full and sleeping.  As the owner of a high-strung, high-pain tolerance bird dog that was not smart enough to know when he was hurt, I became quite familiar with dog first aid.  I used my personal first aid kit many times to patch up my dog while in the field hunting upland game birds.

In the November 2006 American Hunter Magazine Editor’s Field Test column, Assistant Editor Kyle Wintersteen evaluated the Ready Dog First Aid Kit.  Wintersteen had many nice things to say about the kit. 

Even though my dog went to doggie heaven in August, I was thinking that a kit like this would have come in handy for me on many occasions.  I also know that many Hunter Education instructors own bird dogs and would have a use for such a kit.  What that in mind, I e-mailed Ready Dog Canine First Aid at www.readydogproducts.com and introduced myself. 

In my initial e-mail, I explained that many Hunter Education instructors are avid bird hunters and possibly Ready Dog and the IHEA could form an alliance to offer discounts to instructors on dog first aid kits.  Within days, I received a telephone call from Ready Dog CEO Scot Williams.  Williams offered to send me a canine first aid kit to try.

Unfortunately, my dog is now chewing furniture and chasing pheasants in doggie heaven, so I could not personally field test the kit.  However, Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks Hunter Education Administrator Wayne Doyle has a foreign brand, high-strung bird dog that he uses to hunt upland game and waterfowl, so I asked Wayne to field-test the kit.  (For those of you who know Wayne, you can attest to the fact that Wayne is not afraid to speak his mind.  If Wayne likes something, you will know about it.  Likewise, if he does not, he will pipe up.  That is exactly the type of field evaluation I was looking for.)

Here is a summary of Wayne’s comments:

“To merely say that I was impressed with the content and quality of the Professional Kit I received is an understatement. In fact, my first thought was that this was a far more extensive kit than anything that this one dog hunter would ever need. Then I read the handbook, Emergency First Aid for Your Dog. The handbook is almost worth the price of the kit by itself. The handbook convinced me that I have been woefully unprepared to deal with even the most basic dog emergency. The assumption that qualification for human first aid is enough for dogs is not necessarily true.

The company, Ready Dog Canine First Aid, offers several different kits depending on the needs of the dog owner.  Their kits can be viewed at www.readydogproducts.com. There is a complete listing of the contents of each kit for the dog owner to base purchase decisions upon. Not surprisingly, the Professional is the top of the line with, in descending order, the Trial Dog kit, the Gun Dog and the Essentials kit rounding out the product line. I suspect that most hunters would be satisfied with the Essential Kit.