Realizing that living and playing outdoors in sunny Florida can be an inferno for our four-legged friends, Brian McClish of Tampa set out to find a way to keep his pets cool in the shade.
"I’ve lived in Florida for 13 years and have always owned dogs,” says McClish owner and creator of the
K-9 Koolee. “I spend a lot of time outdoors with them while playing beach volleyball or surfing, I like to take them with me whenever I can. Before the Koolee, I would have to either return home early or bring them out of the heat. I started tooling around with different mechanisms to cool them down, and with a medical device sales background I came up with a medical grade polymer that maintains temperature over a long period of time.”
The K-9 Koolee is portable and, according to McClish, has been field tested on the beaches of Florida and scientifically proven to maintain a cool surface for up to eight hours.
"The principle behind the design is an easy-to-carry, duffle bag-style dog bed that’s designed with a cooling element inside the bed,” McClish says. "When the bed is opened up, which is like a clam shell, the internal cooling elements, keep the dog cool outside.”
The product comes in two sizes: small/medium for dogs up to 55 lbs. and large for dogs 55-125 lbs.
"In addition to
our website, people can purchase it at
One Lucky Dog in St. Pete, in Tampa at
Wag on Davis Island or at
Dog Gone Holistic in FishHawk,'' McClish says.
Writer:
Kimberly Patterson
Source: Brian McClish, K-9 Koolee
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