Lively designs, built around the squeaker.

ZippyPaws is a dog toy and accessories company from Southern California. In a company profile published in November 2015, the international pet trade publication GlobalPETS reported that Jennifer Cao, the company’s co-founder and vice president, had started ZippyPaws with her father, Benny Cao, in 2011. The magazine called them a daughter-and-father duo and said they had built the company with the intention of bringing lively designs to the dog toy business.

Jennifer Cao’s view, as GlobalPETS reported it, was that until recently dog owners had not had a large variety of toys to choose from. The pair wanted toys that were lively, that captured a dog’s attention and that stood out to the people doing the buying. That second audience matters to the brand: the company’s mission statement, as given in its supplier listing on the trade platform Pet Insight, is “to create beautifully-designed, high-quality pet products for the modern dog and dog owner”, and the 2015 profile likewise said its products were designed with the modern dog in mind.

The first line Jennifer Cao developed was Squeakie Buddies, which GlobalPETS described as simple, unstuffed and creative, with characters including a moose, a walrus and a beaver. The idea, the magazine said, was a toy without stuffing. The line was built around what the company calls Cylindrical Blaster Squeakers, larger than an ordinary round squeaker so that each squeak lasts longer. Squeakers, the profile said, had become something of a specialty for the company, and a lot of work went into creating them. It quoted the company slogan that sums up the brand’s tone of voice: “a squeakin’ good time”.

Squeakers, doughnuts and a gear line.

The squeaker work went further. GlobalPETS described a Jiggler squeaker that sounds when a toy is shaken from side to side, and a Crescent squeaker which, it said, lets the company’s Donutz toys squeak wherever they are pressed. The Donutz are plush toys made to look like doughnuts; the Pet Insight supplier listing describes their embroidered “sprinkles” and toppings and says each one contains two of the company’s Crescent squeakers. In 2015 the magazine also noted the Squeakie Emojiz, toys shaped like the emoji faces of phone keyboards, which it said had made a splash online.

Food and everyday objects recur across the range. The same supplier listing describes NomNomz, plush versions of favourite foods such as a taco, and Crusherz, a fabric sleeve for an empty plastic water bottle that comes with a squeaky cap. It also lists the Zippy Burrow, a plush home from which a dog digs out the small plush animals hidden inside, and a ring-shaped toy called Loopy, packed with squeakers and made without stuffing.

In early 2014, according to GlobalPETS, ZippyPaws added an adventure gear line of outdoor products for dogs, meant to encourage a more active life. Jennifer and Benny Cao spent more than a year rounding out the selection before showing it to the public, the magazine said, because they wanted the line to be right before launch. By 2015 the company had extended its distribution to a number of European markets and hoped to widen it further, while working to build its name within the industry; the magazine called it a relatively small company that was slowly becoming a familiar name.

Design and documentation.

The seven brands in this group are all dog toy and accessory names: Planet Dog, Petstages, ZippyPaws, Petmate, Multipet, Coastal Pet and Lupine. Toy and accessory brands for dogs sit at many different points in the pet trade, from small workshops that still carry a founder’s story to names that now belong to larger pet-products groups, and a single brand can be sold everywhere from an independent pet shop to a national chain.

A pet brand’s identity is usually carried less by one toy or collar than by a name, a mascot and the promise printed on its packaging, 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 toys, collars and leads 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 marks have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A new look for a tenth birthday.

The company’s present look dates from its tenth anniversary. Pet Insight reported on 2 March 2022 that, in celebration of that anniversary in 2021, ZippyPaws had taken on a new look, revealing a new logo, updated product packaging and a revamped website. The redesign, the report said, brought a new look and colour palette to all of the company’s customer-facing assets, including its website, its social media presence and its trade-show booth. The trade platform described ZippyPaws as a Southern California pet toy and accessories manufacturer.

The new identity went on show at Global Pet Expo, the industry trade fair held at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida, on 23–25 March 2022, where the company presented new products alongside its redesigned booth. Pet Insight gave the stand as booth 5200, in the South Concourse of the convention centre’s North/South Building.

The brand also speaks in its own voice through audio. ZippyPaws publishes the Dog Mom Podcast, whose listing describes its host, Jen Glaser, as a co-founder of ZippyPaws; its episodes, which run from 2020 into 2026, include conversations with people from across the pet industry and from the company’s own team.

The name needs a little care. The company writes it as a single word with a capital P, ZippyPaws, while some retail listings split it into “Zippy Paws”.

For a design guide, ZippyPaws shows how a squeaker-led toy line built its personality from food shapes, emoji faces and a cheerful slogan, then drew it together with a new logo, packaging and palette at ten years old. Compare West Paw, the family-owned dog toy maker of Bozeman, Montana, and Nylabone, the long-running chew brand. For this guide we use sprinkle pink, sky teal and deep berry with a rounded sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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