We exist because one handler wanted to make one puppy something special – an exciting, colourful, comfortable hood.
The rest just happened.
Mister Nigel, founder of Wruff Stuff has this to say:
Origin story
In November 2015 I was looking for a hood for my (then) puppy, Dante. None of the available hoods fit the pup’s character or persona. I wanted a hood that would be the things the other hoods were lacking. Being a designer, artist, and generally a creative type, making a hood wasn’t something I was shy of attempting.
After some trial and error I had got the shape about right, and was looking at souring materials. I tried gluing different coloured vinyl in order to have a hood that showed a design, but it wasn’t good enough. So I tried something that no-one had done before; I made a fully-printed pup hood.
It was lovely! It brought some extra challenges regarding how designs change from 2D to 3D but the hood was done.
What happened next
I posted pics on Facebook and Twitter. It turned out other pups were interested. I had the entheusiasm, and luckily I had the time.
I spent some more time working on the hood, because once there’s money involved you want to deliver something worth buying.
I road-tested some hoods, and eventually founded Wruff Stuff as the brand and started selling them online.
A couple of other pups, namely Dash and Dapper, found all of this very exciting and actively promoted Wruff Stuff out of their own kindness and excitement one-on-one to pups. That was pretty amazing. Having social anxiety myself it’s something I would have struggled to do.
Where we are now
Wruff Stuff is now a small team based in Manchester (UK), composed of designers and friends – and some amazing support from pups, handlers, and happy, satisfied, waggly-eared customers.
We’ve spent time improving the hood since it first hit the market, and a lot of money buying machinery to make the products better.
We started as a one-trick pony and have added different species and different types of gear. We intend to add more.
Our products are sold all over the world, and stocked in shops in UK, USA, Germany, France, USA, and Australia.
Who knows where this journey will take us.