Most dog clothes are designed for dogs, which sounds obvious until you realize it is the whole problem. Aim a sweater at a dog and you tend to get something that looks like it wandered off a baby, all rickrack and cartoon bones. Ware of the Dog is built on the opposite bet. Founder Jackie Rosenthal designs for the person holding the leash, on the theory that what your dog wears is really an extension of your own taste, and that quiet conviction is why her label ended up on the racks at Harrods instead of the endcap at a pet shop.
A fashion pedigree, redirected
Rosenthal did not come up through the pet industry. She came up through high fashion, with a résumé that includes Comme des Garçons, Nina Ricci, and Lanvin, houses that prepared her to dress people far more than their four-legged companions. That background is the tell. She has said plainly that she dislikes pet clothing that tries too hard to be adorable, the kind that reads as dumbed-down baby wear, and that her aim is the opposite: pieces that are fun and a little whimsical without ever talking down to the wearer or the owner.
The result is clothing that threads a genuinely hard needle. It is cute without being cutesy, colorful without tipping into garish, and interesting without shouting for attention, the sort of thing you could imagine wanting for yourself as easily as for your dog.
The “Beware of the Dog” origin
The brand was born on a walk. Strolling her dog through Greenpoint, Brooklyn with a friend, Rosenthal got to talking about how enjoyable it would be to build a little line of pet accessories, a lighthearted change of pace after a career in women’s fashion. They walked past a fence with a “Beware of the Dog” warning on it, and the pun wrote itself. Ware of the Dog had a name, and a signature safety-orange accent that still nods to those neighborhood signs.
She started small: roughly six sweaters, a mix of machine knits made in a small Queens factory and hand knits produced by local New York knitters. A photographer friend shot them on her friend’s dogs, she assembled a modest catalog, and she sent it to Barneys. The department store emailed back almost immediately asking for a meeting, and after seeing the pieces in person, placed a sizable order. That was the launch. One of those very first designs survives today as the brand’s cable bobble turtleneck, a direct descendant of the sweaters Barneys bought.
Fashion stores first, pet stores second
Here is the part that proves the thesis. Rosenthal never wanted to live only in pet retail. The goal was always to sit across categories, in fashion, lifestyle, and pet stores alike, and the brand did exactly that. Ware of the Dog has been carried by Nordstrom, Saks, SSENSE, Anthropologie, and Harrods, alongside high-end pet boutiques around the world. When a fashion buyer stocks a dog sweater next to human apparel, it is because the design holds up on human terms, which is the entire point.
What began as sweaters and leashes has since grown into a fuller world of handmade plush toys, dog bowls, charms, and harnesses. Rosenthal, who once ran the label on the side while doing freelance fashion-sales work, now devotes herself to it full-time, though she is famously in no rush to scale for scale’s sake. The plan is simply to keep making beautifully considered things for what she cheerfully calls the world’s coolest pets.
The chief inspiration
No fashion house is complete without a muse, and Ware of the Dog’s is Hugo, Rosenthal’s Coton de Tulear. Easygoing and endlessly friendly, Hugo comes to work every day, draws admirers on every walk, and, at 14, still has enough of a young streak to fill in as a model when the professional dogs on a shoot decide to misbehave. He is, in every sense, the house dog.
What’s new since this was written
Ware of the Dog is still very much Rosenthal’s project, and the brand continues to lean into its founding idea: design-forward, sustainably minded pieces with that recognizable safety-orange signature. Beyond its own web store, the label has expanded its footprint through fashion-and-lifestyle-leaning stockists and marketplaces rather than chasing mass pet retail, which keeps it aligned with the fashion-first positioning it started with. The catalog has broadened too, but the through-line has not moved: it is still clothing you would be a little tempted to keep for yourself.
You can shop the collection, including that original cable bobble turtleneck, directly from Ware of the Dog.
