When you followed our blog so far you know, we are real fans of PenCott camouflage patterns. All the more we are happy to announce that we will be able to provide you with an all new pattern that’s exclusive to our store: PenCott GreyHound.

For the unlikely case you never heard about PenCott, go have a look at their website.

Where to use PenCott GreyHound

As you might know, most patterns focus on a specific environments. There’s , for example, GreenZone for green and fresh foliage. Then there’s WildWood for darker, northern woods, MetroPolis for urban environments and SnowDrift for snow covered plains and more.

Our exclusive camouflage pattern will follow a complete different path: It’s not focused on where you want to hide, it’s focused on from what you’re trying to hide. It’s perfect if you’re trying to evade attack dogs, no matter where you are.

GreyHound Smock Prototype

GreyHound Smock Prototype

As you might know, dogs are not good in seeing colors so PenCott. GreyHound skips all color and just uses white and shades of gray. This way our exclusive pattern will be perfect to confuse every canine that is searching for you.

Even when a color on fabric looks very similar to its original in the real world it might change under certain conditions. A green that looks exactly like foliage in bright daylight might look different in the dark or through night vision. We thought it might be similar when looking at it through dog’s eyes. So we tried to find colors that dogs confuse with your background no matter where you are. More important it works under all light conditions: In bright daylight, in the night and so on.

The fabric we use for PenCott GreyHound

Using the usual 50:50 mix of cotton and nylon is more or less a must when you want to make tough uniforms. But we didn’t want to stop there. As you might know, there are some manufacturers that weave strains of pest repellents into the fabric. This helps with keeping nasty bugs away. So we tried to do something similar but more true to the use case of our new camouflage. Instead of trying to add a repellent, we tried hard to add solid deodorant to the fabric to hide your specific smell. Instead of keeping away puny mosquitoes we protect you from raging Mastiffs or overly friendly Labradors. You can clean yourself as thorough as you want but a dog will still be able to find you. Our special fabric will help you with fixing that.

To be fair, we have to admit we tried to work with different additives that did not work out (so far). We will keep trying and maybe come up with a working solution. If you’re curious what we try to get working, read on.

Junior K9 Operator searching for GreyHound backpack

Junior K9 Operator searching for GreyHound backpack

What did not work out so far

Instead of trying to hide any smell of the wearer we tried to make it even harder for a canine to catch up the smell. We tried to overlap human smell with pepper and other stenches. Unfortunately all we could achieve was that our test users got sick from the smell.

Our fabric vendors are still working to find a way to create an odorless Cordura fabric. This fabric printed with PenCott GreyHound tastes like bacon. We thought that for the unlikely case you’re found, you want the dog to gnaw on better protected parts of your clothes. As soon as we get the smell out of the Cordura we will start equipping new gear with that.

What worked out so far

We ran some extensive tests with all sort of K9 operators.

Not only could we effectively hide from chasing dogs we realized that stuff that’s printed with PenCott GreyHound does not look like a threat to dogs. On the contrary when they are even able to spot it they seem to be interested and puzzled and not be aggressive at all.

Availability of PenCott GreyHound

We already started to print the usual 50/50 NyCo and 1000D Cordura fabric. So we should be able to provide you with clothing and gear in PenCott GreyHound from April 1.

You might find it interesting that we are not only making clothes and gear for humans. We also seek to provide humans best friend with as much protection as possible. So we started test runs for gear for canine operators. No matter if you’re working with anti-attack-dogs-attack-dogs or just want your best friend hidden from other dogs. We got you covered. Literally.

K9 veteran hiding with GreyHound

K9 veteran hiding with GreyHound

As soon as there are ready made uniforms available we hope for a first review on PineSurvey.


About the author

widhalmt is what you might call a tactical gearhead with a focus on collecting. Like your average nerd he likes to dig into topics he’s interested in and learn as much about them as possible. Then he tries to get hold of his items of interest (he’s quite picky about brand and model when he chose a certain item) and put them to the test. Be it while walking the dog in the woods or go for overnighters outdoors.

In his daytime job he works as lead support engineer for an open source IT consulting company. Since his work involves a lot of travelling and going to customers he has quite some experience in choosing items that are rugged enough for constant travelling but still work in an office environment without offending anyone by being “too tactical” (although he tends to stretch that last part a bit). It’s safe to say that he has some tactical gear on him when he walks out the door (and sometimes even when he stays at home).

In tactical gear he has very widespread interests but if he had to pick something, it’s be knives, bags/backpacks and camo patterns (especially PenCott)