Two brothers, a Plott Hound and a short stop.

Kurgo was founded by two brothers, Kitter and Gordie Spater. The company says it was founded in 2003, and English Wikipedia places that founding in Salisbury, Massachusetts; when the business was sold in 2018, the buyer’s press release still described it as based in Salisbury. The company that made Kurgo products was Motivation Designs LLC, the name used in that release.

The brothers told their own story on Kurgo’s “Our Story” page, archived in December 2016 and signed by both of them. They wrote that their parents were apparel manufacturers, retailers and entrepreneurs, that they grew up in the woods of Vermont with family dogs, and that working on pet products “wasn’t so obvious” until a dog made the case. That dog was Zelda, Kitter’s Plott Hound, who “had a mind of her own” and kept trying to nudge her way into the front of the car; on one trip a short stop threw her onto the driver’s-side floor, around the pedals. The result, they wrote, was Kurgo’s first product, the Backseat Barrier.

Gordie Spater gave the same account in an interview with Pet Insight in February 2016. In the 2016 text the brothers divided the work plainly: Kitter could often be found “out back stitching together his next product idea,” while Gordie travelled the country meeting retailers. He described his brother as an industrial designer who designed all of the company’s products, called the barrier “our first product into the pet industry,” and said its sales were what led the brothers to build the rest of the company. In the same interview he said Kurgo had a warehouse outside Chicago and offered a lifetime warranty on its products.

A logo modelled on a dog, and gear for the road and the trail.

Kurgo’s mark has a named subject. In the 2016 “Our Story” text the brothers wrote that Zelda was gone but “still lives on as the model for Kurgo’s logo.” The company has not published a designer for the mark or an official colour or typeface specification.

The same page set out the brand’s voice. The founders wrote that, “like resourceful Yankee artisans that came before us,” they made products “long on usefulness and quality, and short on frivolity,” and that they would only make something that solved a real need, was original or a major improvement on what was already sold, and could last. Every product, they said, carried a lifetime guarantee; the current site still promises a lifetime warranty and sums the brand up in two words, “go together.”

The range grew outwards from the car. English Wikipedia lists carrier backpacks, active harnesses, cold-weather jackets and seat covers alongside the barrier, names PetSmart and Petco among the retailers that stock the brand, and the company describes gear for road trips, trails and everyday walks. In his 2016 interview with Pet Insight, Gordie Spater described the line as travel and outdoor products for people and their dogs.

Kurgo also put its name to research on driving with dogs. PolitiFact reported in January 2013 that AAA had issued news releases in August 2010 and July 2011 on AAA/Kurgo surveys of dog owners who drove with their dogs, and noted that the surveys were sponsored by Kurgo, a company selling restraint products for pets in cars. The 2011 survey, PolitiFact said, covered 1,000 owners who had driven with their dogs in the previous year.

Design and documentation.

The seven brands in this group are all pet names: PetSafe, KONG, Chuckit!, West Paw, Ruffwear, Kurgo and Butternut Box. Between them they cover much of what an owner buys for a dog beyond the animal itself — toys, ball launchers, beds, collars, leads and harnesses, gear for car journeys and outdoor trips, and food. Pet brands in general sit at many different points in the trade, from founder-run workshops to labels that now belong to much larger groups, and a single name can be sold everywhere from a specialist shop to a supermarket aisle or a delivery subscription.

A pet brand’s identity is usually carried less by a single product than by a name, a colour, a pack and a tone of voice, because the company behind the name may have changed hands, moved its production or grown far beyond the town where it started. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its products are actually made.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its products are made and how its packaging and advertising have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Part of the PetSafe parent since 2018.

Kurgo has been owned by Radio Systems Corporation since 18 October 2018. That day the company, best known for its PetSafe brand, announced from Knoxville, Tennessee, that it had completed its purchase of Motivation Designs LLC, the maker of Kurgo; Pet Insight reported the deal as finalised on the same date. Radio Systems’ chief executive, Willie Wallace, said the acquisition would let the company “expand our reach to customers seeking adventure outside their home,” and that it accelerated a travel and access category Radio Systems had begun in 2017 with its purchase of Solvit. Gordie Spater, quoted as Kurgo’s co-founder, called it “a new chapter for Kurgo products.” In Pet Insight’s report he added that “we take our work personally,” and that each product the company made was meant to solve a real need for people who wanted to spend time outside with their dogs. The release says the investment bank Cascadia Capital represented Kurgo.

Kurgo now sits inside that group. Its website lists Kurgo Products in Knoxville as its contact address and carries a PetSafe Brands copyright line, and English Wikipedia gives Knoxville as the brand’s headquarters. The lifetime warranty the founders introduced is still offered on the brand’s site.

For a design guide, Kurgo shows how a founder’s story about one dog can become both a product line and a logo. Compare PetSafe, the sister brand under the same owner, and Ruffwear, another outdoor dog-gear brand that began with a single fix for a dog. For this guide we use pine green, trailhead amber and canvas with a condensed sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Kurgo’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.