Ruffwear Highlands Dog Pad Review

by Shannon

Active Gear Review is supported by its audience. If you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

The Highlands Pad, by Ruffwear is yet another favorite among our dog testers, Aspen and Suki. Ruff Wear says, “Reclaim your sleeping bag while still providing a comfortable place to let your dog curl up and rest for another big day.” And we couldn’t agree more. Our pups voluntarily curl up on the Highlands when placed inside the tent and leave our sleeping pads and bags for our own use. Hoorah!

What makes the Highlands so attractive to the pups? First off, the bed is soft and insulating, similar to your sleeping bag, providing a nice barrier to the cold earth or inside of your tent. Secondly, the bed is a great size and easily provides a landing pad for our 70 lb. Airedale Terriers (think tall-long-lean build). Thirdly, the dogs can take pride in the fact that they carried their own bed for the trip. Okay, this is more for us humans. But the Highlands weighs in at a mere 14 oz, is highly compressible, comes with its’ own stuff sack, and fits in most dog packs we’ve tried (not the Ruffwear Single Track, but long hauls are not what that pack is designed for).

The Highlands bed has an oval shape and has 4 evenly on the underside to anchor the bed down with stakes (not included). We used this feature while sitting around the campfire to give Suki, 7.5 years old, a cozy-secure spot to lounge before retiring to the tent. We also loaned the Highlands to a friend with a rather large Lab mix; they placed the bed under one of their tents vestibules to provide their pup with a safe and warm place to sleep.

We have only washed and dried the Highlands once. It came out looking great and we even dried it with tennis balls, an old trick, to ensure the loft remained evenly spaced. We probably didn’t need to do this because there are small patterns throughout the bed to prevent loft from shifting, but old habits die hard. Overall, Aspen & Suki have been quite pleased with their new bed and look forward to many more sleeps on it this summer!

For more info on the Highlands Pad and other Ruffwear products, visit www.rei.com or www.amazon.com/ruffwear.

Details: