Pets First Cowboys Pet Collar Review: Months of Daily Walks

Biscuit has worn the same Dallas Cowboys collar for about 18 months now, and I still catch myself checking it before every walk. He is a 27-pound French Bulldog with a barrel chest and a short neck, which means most collars either hang loose around his throat or dig in behind his ears. The Pets First Cowboys Pet Collar, size Large, was the first one that stayed put without strangling him. I bought it for a friend's game-day watch party, and it became his everyday collar on game weeks, which is a longer run than I expected from any licensed team gear.

This is not a review of a collar that lives in a drawer until September. This is the collar he has worn on neighborhood walks before big games, to my Sunday watch party in the backyard, and through a full Ohio winter of slush and salt. It has been washed cold and hung to dry more times than I can count. It still says DALLAS in clean letters, the team colors still look bright, and the buckle still clicks like it did on day one.

How I've Used It

My Sunday routine is the same most weeks in the fall. I clip Biscuit's ID tag to the D-ring on the collar, snap the leash on, and we do a slow loop around the neighborhood before people start showing up for the watch party. The collar stays on him for most of the day after that. He wears it through the first half, through halftime snacks in the yard, and often through the second half too. Some weeks he wears it for six or seven hours straight.

The Sunday I remember most was the first really cold one last November. The temperature had dropped overnight, the sidewalks were slick, and Biscuit wanted to stop every few houses to sniff the frost. I had the collar on him before his leash, which is backwards from how I do it most days, and I remember thinking that a cheap collar would have been soaked through by the time we got home. This one was damp, not soaked, and it dried on the hook by the door before the first guests arrived. That was the day I stopped treating it like game-day gear and started treating it like his real collar.

The collar is listed at 30 inches long, 1 inch wide, and 2.4 ounces, made from 100% nylon webbing with nylon web binding stitched around the edges. The closure is a buckle with a snap, and that combination is the reason it works on a dog like Biscuit. A plain slip-on collar has to be tight enough to stay over his head, which usually means too tight under his jaw. The buckle lets me set the circumference exactly where it clears his chest and still sits high enough that the ID tag hangs where I can grab it.

I wash it the way the care instructions say: machine wash cold, line dry. I do not put it in the dryer. That matters more than people think, because the nylon web binding is what keeps the edges from curling, and heat is what undoes that stitching over time. Eighteen months in, the edges are still flat. I also check the buckle before I put it back on him, the way you would check any piece of gear before a game. It takes two seconds, and it is the reason nothing has ever come loose on a walk.

What the Specs Actually Say

The listing calls this a heavy-duty, strong, and durable dog collar, and for once the description is honest. The material is 100% nylon webbing, which is the same stuff a lot of working dog collars use, and the edges are bound with nylon web binding rather than left raw. That is the detail that separates it from a cheap printed collar. Raw edges fray, the print flakes, and within a season you have a gray collar with a ghost of a logo. This one has not done that.

The collar comes in four sizes, and the Large is rated for large dogs. Biscuit is not a large dog by weight, but his chest is so broad that he needs the Large to clear his shoulders. That is the sizing note I would give anyone with a bulldog, a boxer, a pit bull, or any other barrel-chested breed: go by the chest, not the scale. The 30-inch length gives me plenty of room to adjust, and the buckle means I can take up the slack without the collar spinning around his neck. The adjustability is the feature I use the most. I set it one hole looser for a long afternoon in the yard and one hole tighter for a walk, and the snap makes the change quick enough that I actually bother to do it.

One thing the specs make clear is that this is an officially licensed NFL collar, and the listing notes it is available in 32 team versions. That matters more than it sounds like. A licensed collar has the team name and logo printed on the webbing, and the colors are the actual team colors, not a close guess. I have seen knockoff collars at flea markets where the logo is the wrong shape and the name is misspelled. This one is correct, which sounds like a small thing until someone at the watch party leans down to read it.

One thing the specs do not promise is a padded interior, and I would not expect one at this weight. The collar is 2.4 ounces, which is light enough that Biscuit forgets he is wearing it. He does not paw at it, does not rub his neck on the couch, does not try to wriggle out of it the way he does with jerseys. For a dog who hates anything over his head, that is the highest compliment I can give.

How It Holds Up Over a Season of Washing

The real test of any licensed pet product is not the first wear. It is the tenth wash. The first wash is fine on everything. By the tenth, cheap collars have usually started to fray around the buckle, and the printed team name starts to crack where it bends around the neck. This collar has been through more than ten washes, and the letters still read clean.

I can point to the exact wash that would have finished off a lesser collar. In February, after a walk through the worst slush of the winter, Biscuit came home with the collar caked in salt and grit. I rinsed it in the sink first, then ran it through the machine with a load of towels, cold cycle, and hung it over the shower rod to dry. When I took it down the next morning, the nylon had softened back up and the buckle worked like nothing had happened. The D-ring, which is what I clip his ID tag to, has not bent or loosened. That ring takes a surprising amount of abuse, because the tag swings and catches on things when he rolls in the yard.

I think the stitching is the reason. The nylon web binding is sewn along both edges, so the structural threads are protected from the wear that happens at the buckle and the D-ring. The buckle itself has not loosened, and the snap has not gotten sloppy. On a lot of collars, the snap is the first thing to go, because people yank it open instead of pressing it. I press it, and it still closes with a clean click.

The only wear I can find is on the inside of the collar, where the nylon has softened against Biscuit's neck. That is not damage. That is break-in. A stiff collar softens where it touches the dog and gets more comfortable over time. I actually like that it has molded to him, because it means the fit is even better now than it was in week one. The outside still looks like the day I bought it, which is more than I can say for the plain nylon collar he wore before this one.

The Fit Question Every Bulldog Owner Will Ask

Biscuit's chest is the reason I have returned more pet jerseys than I can count. Most off-the-rack gear is cut for narrow dogs, so it rides up and pinches at the armpits. A collar has the same problem in reverse: it has to be tight enough to stay on, but loose enough to clear a chest that is wider than his shoulders. The Pets First collar solves that with the buckle and snap closure, because I can adjust it to the exact circumference instead of accepting whatever the manufacturer decided a Large should be.

Before I ordered it, I measured Biscuit's neck with a cloth tape the way you would measure a player for a uniform. His neck is thick at the base but tapers fast toward his head, which is why slip-on collars slide right over his ears. The Large collar has 30 inches of length, so even at the loosest setting there is plenty of strap left over, and at the tightest it would fit a dog with a much smaller neck. I set it so I can fit two fingers flat between the collar and his throat, which is the same check I use on my players' helmets. Two fingers means it is snug enough to stay put and loose enough that he can swallow and pant normally.

I will tell you the one thing I would change. The collar is built for function, and it looks like it. The team name and logo are printed on the nylon, and they are bright and clear, but there is no padding and no soft lining. On a short-haired dog like Biscuit, the 1-inch width spreads the pressure well enough that it has never rubbed a sore spot. On a dog with very thin fur, I would watch the first few wears and take the collar off if you see any chafing. That is honest advice, not a warning.

Eighteen months of cold washes, slush, and game-day wear, and the buckle still clicks like it did on day one.

Who This Is For

This collar is for the person who wants their dog to look like part of the game-day crew without fighting the gear all afternoon. It is for the owner of a broad-chested dog who has given up on collars that fit. It is for anyone who wants one collar that does double duty: a working leash collar during the week and a team collar on Sunday.

If you wash it cold and hang it to dry, the Pets First Cowboys collar will outlast the season, and probably the one after that. It is also for the person who hosts a mixed crowd on Sundays the way I do. Because it buckles on and off in seconds, Biscuit can switch sides between games without a struggle, which is how a collar that was supposed to be a one-day purchase became the one he reaches for every week.

Who Should Skip It

Skip it if you need a padded collar for a dog with a very thin coat, or if you want a collar with hardware that matches your other gear. The buckle is a standard metal buckle and snap, and it is not fancy. Skip it if you are between sizes and cannot decide: the Large is generous, and if your dog is closer to a Medium, the collar will ride up behind the ears.

And if you do not care about the team, you are paying for the license, so buy a plain nylon collar instead. This one is for the fan. If that is you, and your dog has a neck like Biscuit's, the fit and the build are the reasons to buy it. The logo is just the excuse.