When Patrick Kruse was a child growing up in Riverside, Calif., his family dogs lived in the backyard — no group camping trips, ski vacations, hikes or boat rides.

Now, the 46-year-old Kruse, founder and owner of Bend’s Ruff Wear, sees dogs becoming members of the family — and as new users of high-end active gear.

“In a nutshell, I think dogs have come out of the backyard and are on more journeys with us,” Kruse said. His 15-person company, founded in 1994 in Southern California before moving to Bend in 1996, is banking on that.

Ruff Wear — products for active people’s active dogs, including flotation jackets, collapsible water bowls, bootees and windbreakers — is gearing up for more growth.

The small business is using Fido-friendly Bend as its launching pad: adding more employees, moving into a larger space and expanding its marketing efforts.

“(We’re) working on creating relationships with our dealers, buyers and retailers so they understand the product and the whole distribution chain,” Kruse said. That means directing consumers to their closest retailer so they can get products that best fit their dogs.

“We’re really supporting and helping those who are helping us,” he said.

Of course, dogs have lived alongside humans for ages, doing just fine with only the gear they were born with — so why now does a market exist for expensive dog clothing and accessories?

“I get asked that all the time. ‘Do we really need a set of $60 bootees for a dog?’” Kruse said.

“I think the answer lies in … as family dynamics have changed, dogs are more part of an active lifestyle and no longer in the backyard,” Kruse said.

Ruff Wear’s niche market for furry friends is part of a growing retail trend as businesses seek specialty products to help them compete, retail industry experts say. In the United States, spending in the pet industry is growing by about $2 billion per year, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association Inc.

In 2007, Americans will spend an estimated $40.8 billion on products for their pets, up from $38.5 billion in 2006. A lot of that will be for dogs. Americans are more likely to have a dog than any other animal, with 44.8 million U.S. households owning at least one dog.

Additionally, more retailers are carrying pet products — from bootees and jackets to mini-tiaras and food bowls, says Dan Butler, vice president of merchandising for the National Retail Federation in Washington, D.C.

“More families have more pets than ever before,” Butler said, “which makes pet retailing more attractive to some entrepreneurs.”

At Ruff Wear, Kruse’s entrepreneurship created a business that has grown from a handful of distributors to more than 1,500. The distributors sell to 250 international retailers in 25 countries. Twenty new stores per month add Ruff Wear gear, according to the company.

Ruff Wear estimates its sales for 2007 will be $5 million, up 25 percent from 2006.

“I happened upon this by accident,” Kruse said.

Fourteen years ago, he was mountain biking with friends in Los Padres National Forest, and one friend’s dog that came along needed water. The dog’s owner tried with difficulty to give the dog water in a plastic bag. That challenged Kruse to create a collapsible water bowl.

At the time, Kruse owned Salamander Paddle Gear, which made paddle-sports gear, eventually bringing him to Bend. At an Outdoor Retailer trade show for his paddling products, he set out 15 collapsible dog bowls he’d made in five different colors. They were a surprise hit.

At that show, L.L. Bean ordered 8,000.

“From there, it’s just been product-driven,” he said. “We’d go to trade shows and do a bit of marketing and the standard catalog orders. But there’s a lot more to it than just going to shows and having catalogs.”

That’s where the marketing push comes in, headed by Gary Fleshman, Ruff Wear’s new director of sales and marketing.

“We want to shift the marketing emphasis from word-of-mouth and the occasional ad to a more energetic effort,” Fleshman said.

The plan includes more media advertising and a more aggressive public relations campaign. The point is to connect active people with pets to the Ruff Wear brand, he said.

Ruff Wear’s most popular items include:

•Bark’n Boots Grip Trex, little bootees that cost $59.95 on Ruff Wear’s Web site.

•K-9 Float Coat, a life vest that costs $49.95 to $69.96.

•Backpacks.

•Hover Craft flying disc, which is soft enough to prevent damage to dogs’ gums.

The top five Ruff Wear retailers are REI, L.L. Bean, Mud Bay, Orvis and Altrec.com. Additional Central Oregon retailers that carry the products include High Desert Feed, Bend Pet Express, Healthy Paw, Downtown Doggie, Joe’s, Big R and Newport Avenue Market, Fleshman said.

Fleshman hopes to add more retailers to the list of Ruff Wear carriers — but no big-box stores.

Fleshman doesn’t yet know how much the whole marketing push will cost, but the goal is to grow company sales by 35 percent to 40 percent in the next four years. Two full-time employees will be added to the marketing and sales team, a 13 percent gain from the company’s 15 existing employees, he said. When Kruse started the company, he was the sole employee, doing all the design, development, packaging and shipping. His initial investment in the company was $36.

Ruff Wear is in the process of signing a lease for an 8,500-square-foot warehouse and distribution center in Bend, a space 31 percent larger than its existing facility. The company currently occupies a 6,500-square-foot NorthWest Crossing space with 18-foot ceilings. The new building will be 36 feet high, multiplying Ruff Wear’s ability to store goods.

Kruse says he has no plans to move the company out of Bend — after all, the High Desert is the perfect place to test canine gear.

“Bend is one of the best places to have a dog,” he said. “For this company, we have every kind of testing environment — lava rock, snow, desert, river. It’s just incredible.”