Nine Years and Counting.

Alrighty, about ten years ago, my Mom and I bought Waldie (pronounced Vile-Dee), which is our piebald dachshund as well as Ozzy, he's considered a dapple (despite being mahogany colors). They're both fairly active despite being categorized as "seniors" in the dog world. But...truth be told, I think they're total cream puffs now because my Dad spoils them rotten.

When we first got them, we did what any normal dog owner would do and just get a standard nylon collar. Within a month or two, the collars would fray to the point where they'd pretty much fall off. They're only ...what...fifteen bucks a pop? So, after we went through several of those, I switched over to leather because, hey, they cost more so they should last considerably longer. I think those lasted six months, tops. Between the oil from their skin / fur, running around outside a lot and even dominating the beaches, the leather would actually deteriorate, crack, and rot.

Around this time, my Mom and I would go shopping in Carmel pretty often and would stop into the COACH store. Ahhhh...COACH, how I love thee! Over the last...uhhh...twelve years (god I feel old!), I've owned multiple COACH purses and other various pieces and they've ALWAYS held up extremely well! I'm not very kind to my stuff, so the fact that some of 'em still look brand new is definitely a major factor as to why I'm a repeat customer. The only reason I have MULTIPLE pieces is because, well, I like options! None of my stuff has ever unraveled, frayed, cut...nothing. So, when we were in the store, I noticed they actually had dog collars on hand. After doing the math, I figured out that we had spent well over a hundred dollars on replacement collars PER DOG because of them completely destroying them. My Mom was rather skeptical about getting COACH collars for our high strung weenies because they had a rather dubious track record when it came to taking care of their stuff, but after talking to one of the employees who swore up and down that they were worth it, we actually ended up with 'em to take home. Yes, I realize the gal was doing her job by having us buy stuff, but she also had a dog and talked about how well the collar had held up over time.

Nine years later, Waldie and Ozzy STILL have those collars. Even my Grandma's Dachshund, Zeppy, has a COACH collar and it looks as if I bought it today!

Ozzy was actually willing to sit still so I could take a pic of his. The collar he has is a navy blue color:

 Here's what Waldies looks like..she's camera shy so I had to snatch hers, lol. When we originally got it, it was the dark cherry color rather than the vibrant red they currently have, so it's kept pretty well over the years:

 Keep in mind, I've been mulling over this for quite some time (like a year) and I wanted to see how their collars faired before I took the dive. Well, after talking to Eric about it...we agreed to go ahead and make the investment to get the weenie horde their COACH collars. After that, NO MORE! I'm actually relieved I won't have to worry about replacing these things any more because they can take the abuse and still hold up extremely well. Now, you're probably thinking I'm nuts because each collar runs about seventy eight dollars through COACH's site and even more if you're looking for specific colors on eBay, but that's actually a lot cheaper than what we originally paid for Waldie and Ozzys. Again, I'm keeping in mind how much we've spent over time replacing stuff...so this chunk will save us from getting even more replacements down the road.

 I made my round of calls to all the various COACH stores in the area, but no one seems to carry them anymore due to the current economy...so that's totally understandable. Then I tried their site one more time since the collars didn't pop up until you specifically put it into their search tab rather than just clicking around. Go figure, right? So, I managed to find a pink and a black collar through there in addition to a red one for only two bucks more on eBay:

All I gotta do now is hunt down a teal one for Izzy. The pink one is for Piper since it's like I gotta get the super "fem" color for her because she's so scruffy looking. When I'm out and about with her, people will automatically say "Oh! He's so cute!"...she. Piper is a SHE. I dunno why, but it's like because she's a scruffy lil thing with wire hair and a little beard, does that automatically make you think "male"? As for Izzy, since her coat is a chocolate color,  pastels look fantastic on her. 

I think Ozzy has gotten a little jealous since he's snuggled up and watched me go through various sites, check measurements and making sure I get the right sizes for the horde. He's got this super pitiful look on his face that screams "Where's MY new goodies?!":

Spoiled. All of the dogs in this family are spoiled. Rotten.