I know not everyone thinks that dogs should wear coats, but here at Muddy HQ we disagree (a bit). We aren’t big advocates for just dressing your pampered pooch up in the latest designer wear, purely as an add-on accessory to your fashion stylings, but we do love a practical coat.

Lilly being half Whippet, half Staffy means that she has a coat that has benefits and weaknesses of both breeds. Her whippet side means she has a pretty bald tummy and groin, and the rest of her is covered with short, but incredibly dense fur from her Staffy side. This combination means that when she gets rained on the top side soaks up everything, which means she takes ages to dry, and her bare skin on the bottom half get coated with mud and water and she gets a bit shivery, so we have been looking out for a coat that would solve both issues.

This Rukka coat is brilliant, and ticks all the boxes we were looking for…

✅ It’s lightweight - we wanted a coat that could be used in the rainy warmer weather, as we have a lot of rain here in the North West.

✅ It’s breathable - Lilly likes to run about, even in the rain, so can overheat, and the coat has a breathable mesh lining which helps immensely.

✅ It has a high collar with adjustable neckline - Lilly has a long neck, and the place that holds the most water is the fur on her neck.

✅ It covers her underside - It has a piece of material that goes under the chest and fastens around the waist with a clip buckle which means her chest and tummy stay clean and dry.

✅ It can be used with a harness - Lilly wears a harness so this two-way zip opening is perfect for attaching the lead.

Firstly we ordered the 55 size that, from their guide, seemed to correspond with Lilly’s dimensions, but when it arrived it swamped her, so we swapped for one size smaller - 50. When it arrived and put it on her it seemed a teeny bit big, but we figured going down another size would be too small. The body was long, but it has a cord length adjuster at the tail end, and once we gathered this up (see the photo above) the fit was spot on.

The under panel protects her chest, and a good portion of her tummy, and the adjustable waist cinch ensures a perfect fit, which can sometimes be hard to do with Lurchers, Whippets and Greyhounds as they have a large chest and tiny waist.

On Lilly, the coat sides to the back are quite deep, but on dogs that have a more proportioned shape than Lurchers, these wouldn’t hang so low.

To keep the back end sitting in the correct position when your dog runs around there are rear leg straps that you have to pop their back legs through - we forgot to do this once, and only realised as the back end slowly slid round. On Lilly, with her skinny back end, these elastics were way too long, and could have been a trip hazard, so we put a quick knot in to shorten the length, whilst ensuring we still kept them long enough to get her legs through, and all was good.

I love the way it dries really quickly, and when she comes in with mud all over (which she does quite a lot), a quick splash under the tap, and the mud runs straight off. You can also plonk it in the wash at 30° to get it nice and new looking again.

There is reflective piping at the front and back ends, useful for spotting your wayward pup when walking during the darker nights.

It comes in a handy small drawstring bag for easy packing, and also has eco-credentials as it contains recycled materials, though I wish they told us how much is in it, where it comes from, and how they use it.

Most importantly, Lilly is happy to have this on. We hold it in front of her, she walks forward to pop her head through, and because the rest of the process is just a quick clip she doesn’t get fidgety (like she sometimes does with a zip coat). Once out she happily runs about in the rain without a care in the world, so I think she’d definitely give it a 👍🏻, if she had thumbs that is .

Colours: Red, Black, Yellow

Price: from £55.99 to £70.99 dependent on size

more at » https://houndheadz.co.uk/product/hayton-eco-raincoat-yellow