If you’ve ever wondered what goes into a handmade Biothane® collar – not just the materials and the hardware, but the years of learning behind it – this is that story.
It starts with a puppy, a research spiral, a lot of mistakes, and a Christmas that changed everything.
It Started With Loki
About four and a half years ago, I got Loki as a puppy. He was active, athletic, and absolutely gorgeous – a reddish brown reactive Pittie with more energy than any one dog should legally be allowed to have. I was in over my head. I cried a lot. But I learned SO much. I’ll write a blog post about that someday.
Anyways! Standard flat collars just didn’t do it for me. He looked like something was missing. So I started researching 2″ dog collars and stumbled onto something called Biothane®.
I went deep. I read everything I could find. I joined groups, watched videos, studied how other makers were working with it. And when I felt like I understood enough to try, I ordered a Biothane® starter pack and a few tools.
Then I just started figuring it out.
The First Collar
Here’s the thing about being an overachiever with ADHD – I didn’t start with something simple. My very first collar was a 2″ double layer collar. Most people would start smaller. I went straight for the most complex version I could imagine.
And honestly? It looked great.
I’d done so much research and planning and studying before I ever cut a single piece of Biothane® that I knew exactly what I wanted to make before I made it. The design worked.
The vinyl didn’t.
I used regular vinyl on that first collar. Regular vinyl doesn’t adhere to Biothane® – at all. You have to use heat transfer vinyl, and getting those settings right takes time, practice, testing, and a lot of ruined pieces before it clicks. That was my first real lesson: knowing what you want to and knowing how to make it are two completely different things.
Six Months of Figuring It Out
I made mistakes. I obsessed. I revised. I made collars and leashes for my own dogs, tested them, discovered what I liked and what I didn’t, and started over.
It took about six months before I made a collar I genuinely loved. And then another couple of months after that dialing in measurements to make sure the fit was consistent and repeatable – not just right once, but right every single time.
I practiced on collars for friends and family. I gave them away. I asked for honest feedback. I kept going.
It’s not a cheap hobby. Biothane®, quality hardware, heat transfer vinyl, tools – the materials add up fast. But I wasn’t doing it to make money. I was doing it because I couldn’t stop.
The Lesson That Stuck
About two years in, a screw came loose on one of Cora’s collars.
We were somewhere safe, so nothing bad happened, but it stopped me cold. I stood there holding that collar and felt genuinely grateful that I’d spent all that time learning and testing before I ever put one of my collars on someone else’s dog.
It’s why I now use at least two Chicago screws with Loctite at every hardware point… every D-ring, every buckle, every connection that matters. If one screw ever fails, the second one holds. It’s a redundancy that most people never think about and I think about every single time I build a collar.
That loose screw wasn’t a failure. It was the lesson that made everything after it better.
The Christmas That Changed Everything
Four years in, I still hadn’t sold a single collar.
That Christmas, I decided to make personalized gifts for everyone in my life using my Cricut. Not dog related… just completely customized, one-of-a-kind gifts designed around each person’s personality. I spent three weeks making presents day and night, completely absorbed in it.
And I was happy.
Not just happy, filled up in a way I couldn’t explain. The process of creating something specific for someone, knowing it was going to make them smile, knowing nobody else in the world had exactly this thing, that feeling was unlike anything my regular 9-5 had ever given me.
That Christmas taught me something I’d been circling for years without quite seeing it: I needed something outside of work that filled my cup. Something creative. Something that let me make things that made people happy.
And then it clicked.
Why not combine my love for dogs, my love for creating, and four years of making collars for my own dogs into something that could make other people happy too?
Cora’s Canine Collective was born out of that question.
Why This Story Matters to You
I didn’t start selling collars because I thought I could make a quick buck on a trending product. I started selling them after four years of learning, testing, failing, revising, and refusing to put anything on the market until I knew it was right.
Every collar that leaves my workbench is built on that foundation. The materials, the hardware, the finishing details, none of it is an accident. It’s the result of years of caring about this more than was probably reasonable.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
If you want to see what four and a half years of obsessing over dog collars looks like, you can start with the rhinestone collection or design your own in the Custom Collar Design Studio. And if you want to understand the material I use for every single collar, the Biothane® guide is a good place to start.
— Jenni 🐾