OUR STORY

Paws Wild was founded in August of 2018 by Clayton Gist, a small-town guy from the Texas Hill County. Paws Wild is a small business built upon the core values of hard work, honesty and quality. You combine these values together and you can't help but get amazing products and service. We do things differently at Paws Wild and hope you'll support us!

Clayton started making collars for his dog Rhett. When he got Rhett, at 8 weeks old he was a little nugget weighing in at a whopping 3.5 lbs. Rhett was so tiny that Clayton was unable to find a collar to fit him, so Rhett’s first collar was a leather shoelace. Over the next couple weeks Rhett got big enough to fit an orange cat collar which he wore for the next couple months. During that time Rhett had a couple other collars that he wore off and on, but the sizing adjustments were so minimal that the collars didn’t fit him long before he gave them to other dogs in Louisiana, Minnesota and Texas. At that time Clayton decided it was time to create a collar for Rhett, he set down and thought about how wide the band should be and what sizing adjustments the collar should have so that the collar would fit Rhett for a while. He thought about what material the collar should be made of since Rhett is an extremely active dog whose normally always by his side no matter what adventure they are on like the beach, lake, mountains, ranch, park or traveling the states. So, the collar definitely needed to be waterproof. With all that in mind Clayton made what’s now known as “prototype”, which is a blaze orange waterproof collar. Rhett wore the “prototype” collar for the majority of a year, while trying other models with different features and sizing in other colors. One day on an adventure Clayton was asked where Rhett’s collar was from. A question he had received a number of times before. After explaining the story Clayton and Rhett continued on their adventure. That day Clayton continued thinking about the conversation and about all the times he had been asked about Rhett’s collar. He also thought about how his family and friends had always told him if he ever started selling collars they would be interested in buying them. A few days later Paws Wild was created with our first product being small batch manufactured waterproof collars. We are excited and proud to have other products being released in the fall of 2018!

For those of you wondering what ever happened to the “prototype” collar, it sits on Claytons desk. It’s a little dirty and the single D ring is no longer black in color. The “prototype” withstood an energetic puppy that is always on an adventure, playing in the mud, snow and water any opportunity he gets. Today when Rhett sees the “prototype” in Claytons hand he gets excited wagging his tail and jumping up wanting Clayton to put it on him. It must remind Rhett of all the adventures and good times they’ve had while wearing the collar.