Crash test doggy

GRANDE POINTE — To say that Kirsten Booth loves Freya, her four-year-old Great Dane mix, might be an understatement.

“My partner would say (Freya’s) the centre of my world, even if it’s supposed to be him,” Booth says. “I guess I’ve always viewed any of my pets as members of my family, so she’s kind of like my child.”

Keeping Freya safe is a top priority for Booth, so she’s thankful for Crash Safe Dog. The Manitoba company manufactured the harness Booth uses so Freya can safely travel in her car.

Booth, who lives in Brantford, Ont., has a two-hour round trip commute to work, and Freya joins her every day.

“I already had a harness for Freya but it was a cheapy one from a pet store … It just never felt like it was super secure.”

Booth came across Crash Safe Dog at a pet expo in Toronto. When she learned the company’s harnesses are crash-tested and can withstand 3,000 pounds of force, she knew she had to purchase one for Freya.

“It’s huge peace of mind just knowing that she’s safe,” Booth says.

Pets like Freya are the reason Crash Safe Dog exists, says company co-founder Andrew Churley.

“I’ve always loved dogs, I’ve always loved all animals,” the 32-year-old says. “That’s just a clear passion — keeping them safe.”

The Manitoba company’s flagship product is its “defender harness,” a lightweight vest that fits onto a dog’s torso and works with the existing seatbelts and shoulder straps in vehicles to offer a safe, comfortable ride.

Gordon Templeton, a mechanical engineer, created the harness and started the company under the name Optimus Gear Co. Templeton has around “nine or 10” patents for the various components he came up with to create the harness, Churley says.

Templeton started the company in his basement in Winnipeg, but today it occupies a 1,300-square-foot space southeast of the capital city in Grande Pointe. Every harness Crash Safe Dog sells is made at its headquarters, predominantly using materials from Canada.

The metal the company uses is from different suppliers across the country, the textiles are from Calgary, and the thread is spun in Montreal.

Of the four components in the harness that don’t originate in Canada, one is PVC labels from Asia that Churley says are not available anywhere else in the world and one is carabiners from China, which the company intends to eventually make for itself.

The company was committed to using Canadian products even before U.S. President Donald Trump initiated a trade war with Canada that inspired Canadians to put their elbows up and buy local.

“I was definitely, right from the get-go, trying to do the ‘made in Canada’ thing before it was cool yet,” says Templeton, 38. “Part of the reason for that is bolstering local businesses and supporting our own economy internally allows more entrepreneurs and more investors to continue to reinvest in our economy, rather than offshoring ideas and economic potential.”

Making the products in-house using materials that have been carefully selected helps Crash Safe Dog ensure the quality and safety of everything it makes, Churley says.

“Every portion of everything we make, I can give you the most micro detail (about it),” he says. “It’s all important. It all scales up. I want to keep that in-house (and) keep dogs safe.”

Templeton started thinking about creating the defender harness after an accident involving his vehicle. Nala, his family’s 70-pound chocolate Labrador, hit the dash and was injured.

He started looking for a dog seatbelt that would keep her safe in a car. He found a number of products billed as “crash-tested,” but upon digging deeper, he found many had actually failed those tests.

It took Templeton six years to research and develop the defender harness. That included spending a week in Virginia, where his prototypes were successfully tested on a canine version of a crash test dummy.

Templeton launched the product in May 2021. Realizing his strengths were in designing and creating new products, rather than marketing them, he asked Churley, the brother of one of his friends, to join the company the following year.

Churley was working at a garden centre at the time, a job he had no intention of quitting, but when Templeton offered to show him what he’d created, Churley said yes. What was supposed to be a two-hour meeting turned into 10 hours of the now-business partners talking about the defender harness and the possibilities for Crash Safe Dog.

“It took me two weeks to decide but I knew … I just had to have the courage,” Churley recalls.

He quit his job at the garden centre and got to work learning every aspect of Crash Safe Dog. He learned to sew, how to use a 3D printer and how to use a CNC machine, until he could manufacture the harnesses to Templeton’s standard.

When he could, Templeton stepped back from the company’s day-to-day operations.

Now, Churley still does some of the manufacturing, but he has help from two employees. That leaves him with time to work on the e-commerce side of the business, connect with customers and ship products.

“It’s like the world’s coolest science fair project. That’s what we’re doing here,” Churley says. “I’ve been in several workshops and I just don’t know of anyone else who’s able to go into the shop and sew something, CNC machine it, go through the embroidering process, do 3D printing … It’s limitless and it’s so fun.”

The company offers customized harnesses and also sells leashes, collars and seat covers.

Templeton says he chose to work with Churley because he’s always been a hard worker. “He’s affable, he’s boisterous, he’s got a lot of personality and he’s the right guy to be the face of a company,” Templeton says.

Churley believes Crash Safe Dog is poised for growth. No matter how big the company gets, though, he’s committed to staying in Manitoba, hiring Manitobans, using materials sourced predominantly in Canada and maintaining a personal connection with customers.

“It’s been such a fun and cool journey,” Churley says. “He (Templeton) made a great thing. We get to now make it full-time.”

aaron.epp@freepress.mb.ca