February 1, 2021

Daisy is my main riding companion and we love to spend our time climbing mountains and racing up fire roads together. Trail riding is our main off-season, winter-time activity. But with Covid causing competitions to be canceled, we filled our summer of 2020 with trail riding. Daisy is an experienced horse dog, with lots of trail riding miles under her collar, and she knows to lay in creeks and puddles when the opportunity presents itself. She is also getting older, and I am happy to put in any effort to make her life easier. This brought me to looking into the Hurtta Cooling Vest for her. We already have a Hurtta rain coat and a Hurtta winter coat and have been completely impressed with their quality and functionality so I had no question of selecting the Hurtta brand.

Their size guide is pretty handy and accurate and I ordered Daisy the Large from Amazon for $35. Daisy is a Medium dog, about 55lbs, a lean and fit suspected Catahoula mix dog. It came quickly and I followed the instructions by running it under water before putting it on her. It fit great. Not too tight and not too loose. The vest clips closed and then zips up, making it very easy to put on. The material and quality are excellent as expected and the functionality is just as good. This is why I choose to go with Hurtta, quality and functionality.

We rode around at home, getting in lots of gallops up the hills to give it a nice test. It was a hot, humid Virginia July day. When we stopped I quickly jumped off my pony and checked Daisy. She remained cool to the touch under the vest, dry, but cool. I would also say she appeared to be more comfortable and cooled down quicker than she usually did in these same conditions without the vest. I was impressed.

A couple days later I gave the vest its first try on the trails. To help give it optimum cooling I packed it in a gallop zip lock with cold water and some ice cubes for the drive to the trail, waiting until we arrived to outfit Daisy. We took off on a good two-three hour ride, climbing mountains and racing along trails. Daisy still plopped down in the creeks we crossed which I assume helped keep her vest “recharged” to continue cooling her. When we got back to the trailer I checked under the vest and found her to be nice and cool to the touch, and she seemed to cool down a bit quicker than usual. Again, impressed.

I am very happy with this purchase and continued to use it for the rest of the summer, and will be using it again when the temperatures heat back up this coming summer.