The Eclectic Collie

Basically, I'm in love with Earth Rated Poop Bags. It's as simple as that. Actually no, I'm also in love with the poop bag holder. Probably more so than the poop bags themselves.

This love affair started in 2012 when WDOG had a fun match, and I was looking for prizes. I had heard from someone else that Earth Rated had donated some poop bag holders, so I emailed them and asked. Not long after I found a donation FOUR cases of poop bag holders (with poop bags in them) from Earth Rated on my porch!

When I opened the boxes, the smell was amazing. The package says they're lavendar scented, but I think they smell more citrus-y. And I LOVE citrus-y stuff. Whatever the scent, they certainly DON'T smell like that "baby powder fresh" smell that everyone associates with poop (admit it, you see something that says "powder fresh scent" and you think, "Oh great, it smells like poop."). I could sniff these bags all day. It's not overpowering, but there is definitely a scent.

So, what's so amazing about these poop bag holders? Well, for one, they attach to pretty much anything. I have an old-style carabiner one on Logan's working harness. It lives there and faithfully provides me with clean, sturdy poop bags whenever I need one. The newer ones have a velcro strap that is equally as awesome. More awesome, even, since I can attach it to my wrist. I did this often when I walked dogs at the clinic. Cleaning up each poop as it happened was MUCH easier than cleaning up ALL THE POOPS at the end of the day. But about that - the poop bag holder also has a clip on the back to which a full poop bag can be attached. And the bags are LARGE. Large enough to hold two of Logan's poops. Imagine how many chihuahua poops one of those things can hold! The compostable bags (which are unscented) and soft enough to tie a quick release-type knot in (seriously, softest poop bags ever. I love touching these bags) after the first poop, hang it from the used bag holder clip, and undo the knot quickly and easily for the next poop. Repeat until full, and there's less bag waste!

What else is there to love? CONTESTS! Earth Rates has lots and lost of contests. And Logan won a prize in one this past summer!

What was our prize? MORE POOP BAGS! And a new-style poop bag holder with the velcro. And temporary tattoos. And a journal. And a pen! (Sadly, I lost the pen last week. I loved that pen :( )

It was supposed to be 6 months of poop bags. Well, my dogs poop in the yard at home mostly, and I don't use poop bags for those poops, I use a scoopjawclapclamp thingy. So this is WAY MORE than 6 months of poop bags. I think I've used 4 or 5 rolls so far between the two dogs. These winnings are what allowed me to try the compostable bags!

I will always use Earth Rated poop bags from here on out. Nothing else is suitable any longer. Even if I were to go with a different holder (which I wouldn't unless it was for some reason essential it matched my dog's gear in color), I'd still fill it with these poop bags.

Here's my first review, lest I fall off the goals bandwagon already.

Ella's Lead is a maker of fine leather collars and leashes as well as rope leashes. They offer single or double leather, plain or with spots, conchos, stones, embroidery, or some combination of those things. They even offer a waterproof vegan alternative to the leather collar. If you can dream it up, they can probably make it for you. I coveted their collars for ages before I was finally able to get one, thanks to a gift certificate I got for my birthday a couple years ago.

The first thing I got from Ella's Lead was an EcoLead sliplead in "desert camo" with brass hardware. I expected it to be high-qaulity, but when I got it in my hands, I was absolutely amazed by it. The hardware is very heavy, which is what I wanted in this particular collar, and the brass just blends so well with the rope color. It's one of those pieces of equipment I could just look at all day. It's weight and strength make this the only leash I really feel comfortable using on Gavroche when he has to be around cats.

The leash post-lure coursing. It handled Crazy Dog well, and although it's not a coursing slip, it did in a pinch.

Gavroche's picture above hardly does the lead justice, so here's a similar leash with a snap option instead of a slip leash. Gorgeous.

Around that same time, I also got a Liberty's Attachment to use as a bridge handle on Logan's harness. I chose the black leather because I had heard so much about it, and I wanted to test it out for a future collar...and black goes with everything, so you can't really go wrong there. I use this handle every single day, since it's a piece of Logan's working equipment. It's so smooth and flexible, but still has nice body to it. I love it to bits and I don't know how I'd live without it. A while back I got bored on night and decided to customize a lot of my leather using a wood-burning tool (shut up, this worked out better than I thought it would!) and I burned the words "You always took me where I needed to go" on it, which is a variation on "I always took you where you needed to go" which, of course, comes from Doctor Who (Idris/the TARDIS in "The Doctor's Wife"). This is the perfect quote to describe my journey to having a service dog as well as our working relationship. This is probably the one piece of equipment I treasure the most in my entire collection, and I never see myself parting with it. It's exceptionally high quality, and I plan to use it for years to come. It may or may not be retired when Logan retires (and if it does get retired, I will absolutely be getting another one for the next dog), but that decision will most likely be made on sentimental value alone, and not on it actually being worn out by that point.

This doesn't even begin to do it justice, but here it is in use over 3 years later. It still looks brand new. Brand new with words.

After I fell in love with the first EcoLead, I had to get another, since two dogs and one slip leash doesn't cut it. I was dogsitting and had to walk my dogs through the entire (large) house with strange dogs and strange cats multiple times a day to take them outside. What better excuse to get a second leash? This time I opted for Recycled Raider with zinc-plated steel hardware. This hardware is much lighter than the brass (which is what I wanted this time around) but isn't any less strong or durable...and the zinc plated hardware matches the rope very nicely! It would appear, however, that I have never taken a picture of this leash, or at least I haven't stored the pictures in a place I can readily access at the moment. I'll have to fix that...

Leads would only feed my addiction for so long. The first collar I got is what I call my "Neurodiversity Collar." It's a custom design of alternating colored rhinestones and flat square spots, with an awareness ribbon concho in the middle. I got this collar for Gavroche, and I chose to go with black leather with silver hardware. Part of why I chose black is the color, since Gavroche is white with a black nose, but I also chose it because I had heard good things about that leather...plus I had that Liberty's Attachment already in hand, made from the same leather, and I loved it.

I talked with Rebecca about this collar extensively before ordering it. She was and always has been increidbly helpful and personable. I sent in a concept design pieces together from the picture on their website to help define exactly what I wanted, then let her take artistic license to make it work on an actual collar.

First concept design. The purple rhinestones simply wouldn't fit due to Gavroche's neck size, so they were left out.

The finished collar in the flesh.

The tag, and the tapered area to allow for a smaller buckle on Mr. Petit. Yeah, clearly I abuse my dogs for photo opportunities.

Velociraptor approved!

This collar is THICK. I chose the thickest black leather available, and then had it lined with suede. It fits a double thick Boomerang Collar Tag on it, but just barely. This collar is over 2 years old now and still looks fantastic. I only had a problem with the suede bleeding color once, and that was after I conditioned the suede lining despite multiple warnings from the manufacturer to DO NOT CONDITION THE SUEDE LINING. Go me ;) But even then, once all the goop from conditioning it wore off, it sucked the dye right back in and left Gavroche's neck white again all on its own. I don't even...and the suede was still in great condition even though I can't follow simple directions like DO NOT CONDITION THE SUEDE LINING.

I see all-caps warnings in bold with lots of stars as more suggestions than actual orders...

Oh, you see that bit about not taking a suede-lined collar into the water every day? Well, Gavroche decided this past summer that WATER IS FUN. I had him in the water in his EL collar before, and it came out looking fantastic and clean. That's fine, but you ought not take suede lined collars into the water every day, especially when you probably ruined the adhesive already when you conditioned the suede that shouldn't have been conditioned. The suede started to peel off, and sice Gavroche was in the water or otherwise wet so much this summer, I said screw it, I'll just take it all off! Except...it's actually pretty well attached. I decided to e-mail Ella's Lead for guidance in removing it all the way. Ben responded promptly.

You mean to tell me people follow bolded all-caps directions surrounded by lots of stars? Do I look like people to you?

Ben handled it very well and told me exactly what I needed to know. I removed the rest of the suede without issue, and I didn't even have to use the leather wax to whip it into shape. The leather on the inside is still incredible soft and reasonably smooth, and doesn't irritate Gavroche's neck at all. I may, some day, send it in to get it re-sueded and stamped with that freaking ADORABLE EL logo stamp that started being used shortly after I got this collar. Some day after I learn to follow directions, that is.

So, being in love with this collar, I decided Logan needed an EL collar, too. It took me forever to decide what I wanted for him. Logan does not and cannot wear a collar full-time because it will break his coat. He wears it for working only. This means I had a bit more flexibility in what I could choose and reasonably expect to stand up to use. For this reason I considered an embroidered specialty leather collar. I even had Ben make me a digitized pattern of the design I was wanting, which turned out very nicely, but I decided it wasn't what I wanted after all.

The Doctor's Name (or something else?) as embroidered to fit a not-very-wide collar.

This collar of Logan's took me NINE MONTHS to settle on a design a wanted. NINE MONTHS. No fewer than 25 emails were sent in the process. I was probably driving them absolutely bonkers, but they never showed it. They were kind, helpful, and just overall good people. Always. After the Gallifrey idea above, I came up with a Dalek-inspired design, still using embroidery but also incorporating some spots and conchos.

EXTERMINATE! Not really fitting for Logan, despite loving this design...

That collar. I love it. But it's not Logan. Logan isn't Dalek-y, if anything he's Doctor-y. I couldn't put that on Logan. So, eventually, after months of trying to make up my mind, I came up with a new design based on their Traveler collar.

This was IT. It was perfect. Well, shortly after I got this collar they got in some steampunk conchos with MOVING PARTS, but still, I REALLY REALLY like this design. They fixed it all up for me into a real life collar, again, but not before cautioning me on my choice of leathers. Gavroche's collar is latigo, and latigo is the leather I have used the most. This leather, this gorgeous, TARDIS-blue leather, is bridle leather. I knew going into it that this is NOT latigo, but I also knew it was not a more fragile specialty leather, so I was okay with it, because TARDIS BLUE. As it turns out, this leather is PERFECT for what I wanted out of this collar. Stiffer than broken-in latigo, sort of waxy, and bleed-resistant to the extreme. The dye on this collar is also not all the way though the leather, it's still brown in the middle - and that gives it a very nice finish when the edges are beveled. It seems like everything that makes this leather undesirable to a lot of people made it perfect for me. This is a martingale collar that I take off and put on multiple times a day, so the slight stiffness is actually beneficial for this purpose. That said, it did still break in nicely and it's plenty flexible, just not overly floppy. Since it's not as soft, it also doesn't scratch as easily (and I suspect the scratches wouldn't rub out as easily if it was scratched, but Logan's not a scratcher), and this collar looks BRAND NEW after over a year of daily use. I kid you not, there is not a mark on this collar. I've been trying my hardest to even get the hardware to tarnish to achieve a nice patina that looks great on steampunk collars in particular, and it's been very resistant (though I am getting there! Lotion-y hands work wonders...).

STOP TYPING AND POST PICTURES ALREADY! The brown center. Love.

The inside. I was worried it wouldn't be smooth, since this was pre-suede-removal on Gavroche's collar, but it is SO smooth.

Center concho. Much gear.

Such timey-wimey. Wow.

Logan absolutely rocks this collar. It's perfect in every way.

I have been extremely happy with not only the products, but the ordering experience, customer service, and long-term follow-up from Ella's Lead. I'd recommend them a million times over, and I will absolutely buy from them again. I don't know what since I ran out of dog necks to decorate and these things certainly aren't going to wear out anytime soon, but surely there's another dog in my future that needs some bling.

And if I'm not enough to convince you, you need only know that Simple Dog from Hyperbole and a Half rocks an Ella's Lead collar, too!