Pooches lap up water pouch

-- Packaging Digest, 5/1/2007

A water pouch for pooches on-the-run? That's exactly what Wetbone Co., Kensington, CT, hopes dogs and their owners will lap up at stores. Reportedly the first-ever flexible standup pouch for dogs' drinking water is shaped like a dog bone. Wetbone's patent-pending water-delivery system is made of a three-layer, polyester/foil/linear low-density polyethylene lamination by converter Ampac Flexibles (www.ampaconline.com), gravure-printed in five colors. An upside-down gusset, made of 4-mil PE film—the middle section of which is heat-sealed to opposing inner walls of the flexible pouch—create a hammock-shaped bowl. Four voids in the heat seal—two on each side—create small, 9-mm channels that allow the water to transfer from the lower compartment into the top, or bowl section, when the pouch is squeezed. A tear strip can be removed from the top of the "bone," and the pouch opens from its press-to-close zipper. The zipper allows the pouch to reseal and be transported again for later use. The 16-oz pouch of purified, vitamin-enriched water sells for about $1.99 each at pet stores, retail and other outlets throughout the U.S.