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Dog Ramps

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dasalmon

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Dale Hollow Lake Monroe TN
Does anyone have or use a dog ramp on their pontoon ? I am looking at one called doggydocks. Our dog is 80 pounds so getting her back on the boat is a problem.
 
You can always try using the search bar up top, I had looked into these a while back, turns out my dogs love the boat, but hate the water so I have no need for one! Here are a few links to the topics







Hope they help a little, there may be more, these are just the few I quickly found, make sure you let us know what you find works well! :)
 
Thanks Derrick. I am sort of a newbie to the forum and did not think of using the search. One of the posts was for the ramp I was considering and he reported that it worked well.

Thanks again

Dave
 
No problem! We were all new at some point!! Haha I can't begin to tell you how much stuff I've found out because of that little search bar!! Haha, I went back through every old post and read them when I first started on here, took a while, but it helped a lot!! Hope to see some reviews of which ever ramp you get and a picture or two!! :)
 
My lab just started using the load a pup it seems to work well. She was able to get back on the boat with no help. You can see it in use in the album for the wet pet contest.
 
I have a Doggy Dock and two large dogs - a Rottie and a Golden Retriever. My review will be mixed. The construction quality of the board is excellent, with one caveat. It's solid and a bit heavy. And it's about six feet long. If they could manufacture it in a honeycomb fashion, they might be able to reduce the weight. And your dog will certainly stretch the standard board's weight capability. You'll most likely need the extension or somehow add additional buoyancy. I don't think the fold-up one is an option.

The real issue is connectivity. Our boat has small cleats, and the board is designed to sort of attach to large cleats. I purchased the deck mount hardware and all looked well. But the hardware is not capable of holding the board with any wave activity. There's too much torque on it. After it ripped out the fittings, I went to a larger size - with the same results. The only way I see this working is to install decent size stainless bolts from below the deck reaching up. Then you can place the board over the bolts and use wing nuts or something else to hold it. But your bolts are going to be visible the rest of the time you're not using it. And you'll have to protect your boaters from them if they walk out on the platform. I would hate to step on one of them with bare feet - or stub my toe. And they could certainly be a trip hazard.

My dogs did get the hang of it the short time it was installed. I am just fearful that no matter what design I might come up with, the power of the waves will overcome my feeble attempts.

My first purchase was a Load a Pup. I wasn't happy with the stability of it - attaching it to the ladder - and my dogs weren't too thrilled with the design as well. Hope this helps.
 
For those that have used or have the Load A Pup, which step did you attach it? I have a 20FS with the fold up ladder on rear (like many others), and it seems that the best step wo attach to is the top step, but the hinge will interfere unless the unit is attached off center.

Also, once attached, can the ladder be folded? Can humans use the ladder? I didn't see an easy way to attach it and still fold the ladder or use the ladder.

Thanks,

Ron
 
Thanks Noah Thats the kind of information I need. I see they have an attacement system that uses two thumb screw bolts and when they are out apparently nothing sticks up above the swim platform. I think that will have to be a spring project.

Thanks again

David
 
Noah I reread your response and understand the problem now. Guess I will continue to look and do research.

David
 
mng8tr, I have a telescopic ladder - which I'm not real fond of - and I couldn't the Load A Pup to stabilize real well.
 
Someone asked me about this at the boat show yesterday,  anyone have any more thoughts or reviews on it? Thanks
 
I've also been looking for a good ramp. We have 4 dogs including a 12-year old that can't hop up and down off the boat. I also want a ramp for human use though. We'll beach a lot where we boat and I want to be able to bridge the gap between the boat and the nice, dry sand a little further up onto the beach. After looking at all the options, I'm thinking about buying a folding aluminum motorcycle ramp, this one in particular. Anyone have any thoughts on that or experience using something similar?
 
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bcpnick...That ramp looks like it might work from the bow to dry land if partially beached and as long as you don't have wave action making the bow go up and down you should be ok.Please keep us posted on results if purchased...THANKS
 
Might be able to make it work for water entry too. Probably a bit too narrow for it though. Might be worth a try. I'll let you guys know how it works out. 

 
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bcpnick said:
I've also been looking for a good ramp. We have 4 dogs including a 12-year old that can't hop up and down off the boat. I also want a ramp for human use though. We'll beach a lot where we boat and I want to be able to bridge the gap between the boat and the nice, dry sand a little further up onto the beach. After looking at all the options, I'm thinking about buying a folding aluminum motorcycle ramp, this one in particular. Anyone have any thoughts on that or experience using something similar?
Click to expand...
Have you thought about how you are going to store that on your boat?  Something that big and heavy will leave a mark on something somewhere eventually, I would think.

Also thinking the underside of the end that goes on the ground would scoop up a lot of sand/mud and looks like it would be hard to clean out.
 
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Here is what I use.. Biceps.

Our dog doesn't swim when we're not beached.
 
kaydano said:
Have you thought about how you are going to store that on your boat?  Something that big and heavy will leave a mark on something somewhere eventually, I would think.

Also thinking the underside of the end that goes on the ground would scoop up a lot of sand/mud and looks like it would be hard to clean out.
Click to expand...
I haven't measured, but I was hoping it might fit in the changing room storage area alongside the battery. The folded length is just under 43". If that doesn't work out, I was going to figure something out behind the captain's chair where I have quite a bit of open space for long items. I'd definitely need to figure out a way to keep it from leaning into the side panel and banging it up though. 

I'm not too worried about the sand/mud from pulling the ramp back up, simply because any amount it could bring in would be a fraction of what I was dealing with without a ramp. I'm thinking I can pull it up and give it a swirl in the water to knock off most of it. The problem we had before was that there was no avoiding the silty/muddy junk between the boat and dry land so the dogs and passengers were all tracking tons of dirt into the boat. The whole boat was just covered in dirt. Way to break in a brand new boat! 
 
I let the kids jump off the bow, but I have them to walk around and use the ladder to get back on.  This only works because where we normally beach, the water is only knee high back by the ladder (and they won't get their clothes wet).  Then they can swish their feet off as the climb up the ladder.  If they still drag mud on, it's easy to clean off the vinyl in the back, plus they generally notice it right away and go back and wash off better.
 
This whole topic of dogs and people getting on the boat at a beach without dragging a bunch of sand and mud on board is something that doesn't really have a good solution that I've seen.  It's come up on the forum a number of times.  I've never seen the "holy grail" solution to it yet...
 
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