The Little Zippy Bowl That Lives in My Pack

Three years ago I was crouched on a slab of granite above Todd Lake with both hands cupped full of water, trying to get my dog to drink before it all ran through my fingers. Moss got two laps. My gloves got the rest. That was the last hike I did without a bowl in my pack.

The bowl that replaced my hands is a Kurgo Zippy Bowl, and it has been clipped to the outside of my pack on every hike since. It is a collapsible bowl that zips down flat into a disc, and it comes with a small carabiner already attached. Folded, the listing gives 7 by 7 by 4.5 inches and 1.76 ounces, which is light enough that I stopped noticing it. Unzipped it opens to 6.5 inches across and 4.8 inches tall and holds 48 fluid ounces. Moss is 46 pounds, so a full bowl is more water than he wants at a single stop. I never fill it all the way.

Here is the habit I settled into. At every stop I unzip it, set it down, and pour about a third of the way up. Moss drinks. I pour whatever is left and still clean back into my own bottle, close the zipper, and hang it on the pack again. A third is what he actually takes mid climb. Filling it to the top just means carrying water back down the hill.

He drank from it the first afternoon I set it down, which surprised me. He is a dog who circles anything new for a while before he commits. The width helps, I think. It sits on the ground at a height he can reach without me holding it steady, and that is most of what a dog cares about at a water stop.

Three years, the same bowl, the same zipper, and nothing has torn.

I have never owned one of those dog water bottles with a trough built into the lid. I looked at a few listings before I bought this, and I have watched other hikers use them at the same pullouts where we stop. What decided it for me is that the Kurgo bowl does a second job. On overnights it is Moss's kibble dish at camp, and in the morning it gets a rinse and goes back on the pack. A bottle with a trough only ever does water.

The one thing that bothers me is the zipper. Trail grit works into the teeth, and after a dusty weekend it does not run as smoothly as it did new. It has never jammed badly enough to strand us, and it has never come apart. I rinse it in the sink at home, dry it open on the counter, and that is the entire maintenance routine.

It is also floppy in the hand. Until it is unzipped and set down it has no shape at all, so pouring one handed while a dog leans against your leg takes a little care. That is the trade for something that folds down flat enough to live on a pack strap.

The capacity number looks like a lot for one 46 pound dog, and it is. That is why I fill it a third of the way and stop there. But on a hot exposed stretch I have poured the whole thing and let him take what he wanted, then tipped the rest into the dirt. Having the option costs 1.76 ounces of pack weight.

The carabiner on the Kurgo bowl is the part I underrated. On the short evening walks where I am not wearing a pack at all, I clip the bowl to a belt loop and forget about it. On trail days it goes on the outside of whichever pack is in use. Three years on, the clip still holds and the bowl still folds down small.

The least useful thing I can tell you is that the bowl has never been the reason a hike went well or badly. There is nothing to leak, nothing to charge, nothing to assemble. It hangs on the pack, it is there when we stop, and it goes back on the pack. After three years, that is the whole review. Gear that disappears into the routine is gear that is doing its job.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

A friend asked me in the spring whether she needed one of these at all, or whether a plastic tub from her kitchen would do the same thing. My honest answer is that a plastic tub does the same thing. It also takes up the room a tub takes up, there is nothing to clip it to, and I know exactly how I would treat it, which is to leave it on the counter on the day I needed it. The reason this one works for me is not that it is anything special. It is that it lives on the pack, so it is already in my hand when we stop. Gear you have to remember is gear that stays home.

The other thing I say is to mostly ignore the full capacity. Fill it a third, let the dog drink, and put the clean rest back in your bottle. And if your dog is careful about where he puts his head, a wide bowl set on the ground is an easier sell than a narrow trough he has to work out. I bought mine with my own money three years ago and I would buy it again, which is about the highest thing I can say about a bowl.