Fri, Apr 11th 2008

Pet Gear, Inc. Jeep Portable Puppy Playpen

A little room with a view

Jeep Portable Puppy Playpen: We set up the puppy playpen as soon as we brought our new puppy home. Her name is Harper, and she’s sweet but opinionated. In her opinion, she was meant to run free, not to be confined to a 36-inch square by 26-inche tall space, even if it is piled high with toys. But after trying to eat it and pitching a few fits when she was left in it, she’s made her peace with the Jeep Portable Puppy Playpen, which is, for the most part, Jeep tough.

First, the technical stuff: It’s pretty easy to set up and take down, and it folds flat if you want to take it somewhere in the car or store it beneath the bed. A plastic liner is removable in case it needs to be cleaned, and that’s topped with a machine-washable fleece-lined pad that has a waterproof bottom, held in place by hook and loop fasteners. Harper likes to rip the pad away from the fasteners, in a solitary game of tug, but the steel frame and sturdy materials easily withstand her attempts to chew up the playpen from within and without. One mechanical flaw is that the zipper tends to stick.

The only drawback is that Harper has figured out how to escape from the playpen when we’re not home. Either she has devised a method for unzipping it from the inside — heavy-duty zippers notwithstanding — or the other two dogs are unzipping it for her so they can get to any food that might be inside. For now, we appear to have solved the problem by having the zippers meet at the bottom of the doorway instead of at the top, so she can’t pull them downward and then slip through the opening.

The playpen is a great way to keep Harper out of trouble when we’re home but not able to keep an eye on her, and it comfortably holds two and a half Cavaliers if they need to be out of the way of workmen or confined for some other reason.

You can find the Jeep Portable Puppy Playpen at pet retail stores and and online. Contact Pet Gear Inc. at 877-752-9123.