A small toy company, five staff and a team of home sewers.

West Paw did not start from a blank page. The company says that in 1996 Spencer Williams, a Montana native, bought a small pet-toy company in Livingston, Montana, and set out with five full-time employees and a team of home sewers to make dog and cat toys. In 1998 it moved to Bozeman, where, the company says, it built its permanent manufacturing facility and offices. The trade magazine PET worldwide, profiling the company in 2015 as West Paw Design, likewise gave its start as 1996 and its head office as Bozeman, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.

Williams has led it since. PET worldwide called him owner and president in 2015 and wrote that he wanted to create products and wanted Montanans to make them; a staff member quoted in the piece said employing local talent was the main reason for opening a factory in the state. The company today describes itself as family owned and operated since 1996 and signs Williams as “CEO, President, & Dog’s Best Friend.”

That last phrase is the brand’s own line. West Paw’s about page argues that if a dog is “man’s best friend,” the company’s goal is to be “Dog’s Best Friend,” a phrase it registers as a trademark, and it closes its pages with a second line, “Made by us. Designed for the love of pets and the planet.”

Zogoflex and the loop.

The material that defines West Paw’s toys is Zogoflex, a proprietary thermoplastic elastomer. In a 2021 post signed by Williams, the company said that when it developed Zogoflex many people assumed buying injection-moulded toys from China would be the only practical option; instead it bought an injection-moulding press, moved it to Montana and has made the toys there since. West Paw says it engineered Zogoflex to be recyclable, calls the formula USA-made, and promises to replace a Zogoflex toy free if a dog chews it up.

Recycling is the second half of the idea. Under a programme it calls Join the Loop, the company asks owners to mail back worn-out Zogoflex toys; it says they are sanitised, ground up and fed back into its machines to make new toys. A later material, Seaflex, blends Zogoflex with reclaimed ocean-bound plastic sourced through a partnership with Oceanworks, according to West Paw’s Seaflex FAQ, which names floating toys such as Drifty and Snorkl, as well as non-slip bowls and feeding mats, among the products made from it; Seaflex is also part of the mail-back loop. Dog beds use IntelliLoft stuffing, which the company says is made from recycled plastic bottles.

The range has spread well beyond chew toys. West Paw now sells puzzle and treat-dispensing toys such as Toppl, Qwizl and Tux, which it supports with recipes; a toy line called Rowdies; beds, leashes and collars; feeding bowls and mats; and freeze-dried treats and food toppers. For the treats it names its suppliers: the company says its beef treats use American Grassfed beef and its duck comes from Maple Leaf Farms in Indiana.

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.

Made in Bozeman, mostly.

West Paw’s identity leans heavily on where things are made, so the record deserves precision. PET worldwide reported in 2015 that, with a workforce of more than 80, the company manufactured 98 per cent of its dog and cat accessory products in Bozeman, under a “Handcrafted in the U.S.A.” seal. The same profile described an open-book management style and credited a production worker with noticing that large plastic bags from fabric rolls were going to landfill, after which the company began recycling them. Its own pages today say it makes products in its Bozeman hometown and also uses vendors in other facilities “in the US and beyond”: its Outings treat pouch, for example, is designed in Bozeman and made with a partner in Vietnam, under vendor standards the company says it drew up with the Pet Sustainability Coalition, based on International Labour Organization standards and the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The other pillar is certification. West Paw was first certified as a B Corp in 2013 and has since announced its recertification, PET worldwide reported in January 2025; the company describes itself as a founding member of the Pet Sustainability Coalition. It still describes itself as family owned, and in 2026 it lists its address in Bozeman.

For a design guide, West Paw shows how a manufacturer can turn its own process into the brand story: a named material, a mail-back loop and a hometown printed into the about pages. Compare it with Ruffwear, an outdoor dog-gear brand, and with KONG, which also built its name on durable rubbery chew toys. For this guide we use Gallatin pine, toy marigold and river teal with a rounded sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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