Born on a boat, built for the dogs

NautiDawgs is a family project: Troy and Angela Bruce, their crew of water-crazy dogs, and a lake full of summers on the Ohio River out of Goshen, Kentucky. Drake, Butterball, and Willett never met a swim they didn't like. Getting in the water was never the problem.

“Dragging a soaking-wet, squirming dog over the side of a boat isn't easy.”

Every boater with a dog knows the drill: the dog swims circles around the boat waiting for a lift, and somebody's back pays for it. Troy tried hoisting, lifting, treat-bribing. Nothing felt safe, for the dogs or the people.

“One Christmas break, I'd had enough. I grabbed some wood, a few hinges, and built the first version of what would eventually become the nautiDAWGS dog boat ladder.” That first wooden prototype didn't survive, but the idea did. Four years and countless prototypes later, watching Drake swim laps waiting for his lift, the design finally clicked: a compact, slip-resistant ladder dogs actually understand, built from fiberglass and stainless steel to live on a boat.

We're not a big corporation. We're a family that got tired of wrestling wet dogs, and built the thing we wished existed. Every ladder ships from our family to yours.