Opinion - Columns - Bill Morem

Published: Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009

Bill Morem: Here Fido, try this on for size

As a way to end the embarrassment of accidental doggy piddles, a local woman has come up with canine diapers — Pup Pee Pants

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This is one for all you dog owners out there: Have you ever taken Puddles to a friend’s house and, to your horror, she lives up to her name by piddling a puddle on your host’s living room carpet?

OK, it’s not on the top of my Must Worry About List either, but it does happen and Kris Walters is aiming to nip such potential embarrassment in the bud with a line of doggie diapers she’s designed and calls Pup Pee Pants.

Although the 49-year-old San Luis Obispo resident has been forging an architecture career path (she’s passed everything except the California test in order to get her license), the economic downturn has brought her profession to a standstill. So she decided to pursue drawers for dogs.

The leap from architecture to doggie diapers isn’t one that most people would make when the economy tanks, but for Walters it’s been a somewhat rational trajectory that started five years ago when one of her three dogs, a not-so-well-trained adoptee named Max, “began peeing on everything.”

In addition, another one of her three dogs, Milli, an almost-10-year-old Shih Tzu, is now facing incontinence issues.

So she studied various makes and models of existing pooch pants and found that most doggie drawers are made of plastic, like a baby’s rubber pants. “They were kind of noisy and stiff and that bothers the dogs,” says Walters. “They keep turning around to see what’s following them.”

Starting with the design of a regular doggie diaper, she added a second strap for a better fit. And instead of using plastic, she uses fleece (“which is soft and quiet”) and holds the whole shebang together with Velcro fasteners. A little mini-pad fits into the pants.

“I didn’t do this to be cute,” she explains. “They’re done totally to serve a purpose. Because I don’t have children, I take my dogs to a lot of places and I always put their pants on when visiting parents or friends. Nobody’s nervous about an unscheduled pit stop.

“I’ve had people come over and say, ‘Oh my dog will never go,’ and then they do; they just can’t help it. It seems like it’s mostly the smaller dogs, they’re the naughtier ones. Little dogs have all of these issues going on. They’re little stinkers,” she adds with a laugh.

To date, she’s made a bunch of experimental Pup Pee Pants. Last week she went to Happy Tails Kennel in San Luis Obispo and tried pants on a bunch of different-sized dogs. She measures the dog’s belly circumference, their length, and calculates where tail holes should go among various other intimate calculations. She has five standard sizes, which range from lap dogs to golden retrievers and labs.

And although “It’s mostly the little sizes that need (pants) the most,” she notes, don’t expect her products to be frou-frou in color or accessories. Pup Pee Pants come in white, ivory, tan, brown, gray and black.

“They won’t come in blue or pink,” she says. “I don’t want to embarrass the dogs.”

Now that she’s made sure her makes and models are fitting properly all around, she’s going into production. “I have a bunch of patterns and can start sewing.”

She and partner Mark Meissner will be selling Pup Pee Pants for $12.95 to $16.95 (although custom fittings will run higher) through pet stores, trade shows and the Internet. Their Web site, which is still under construction, will be puppeepants.net.

In the interim, you might want to e-mail Walters at krisque@charter.net for more information.

If you’ve been putting off adopting a dog at Woods Humane Society or the County Animal Shelter for fear of dealing with piddles and puddles, you’ve no longer got that canine concern as an excuse.

Bill Morem can be reached at bmorem@thetribunenews.com or 781-7852.