About Us
Why we started
Big Ass Dog Co.
The world thinks a "large dog" weighs 50 pounds. We know better — we share our couches with 150. Nobody built gear for our dogs, and when somebody finally did, they slapped a big-dog tax on it. So we built it ourselves.
It started with a 200-lb deadlift
It began with Apryll's unwavering campaign for a Neapolitan Mastiff — over Drew's germaphobe, neat-freak protests about the size of the breed. After famously deadlifting 200 pounds at CrossFit, she settled the debate: "we are getting a f***ing dog."
That dog was Dino — a magnificent Neapolitan Mastiff who became our Chief Canine Officer and the living heart of the brand. Then came Shelby, our English Mastiff. And living with 200 pounds of dog exposed just how badly the pet industry had failed the giants.
Harnesses rode up into armpits. Beds flattened in a season. Steps couldn't hold the weight. Drew took the problem to his long-time friend and business partner, Jason Friedman — and together they saw a wide-open ocean nobody was serving. So Big Ass Dog Company was born.
For the dogs too big
for everyone else
The pet industry decided a "large dog" tops out around 50–80 pounds. So the owner of a 200-pound Mastiff buys a box of treats a day, fights harnesses that don't fit, and replaces beds that flatten in a season. And the rare thing built right gets a big-dog tax stapled to the price. These owners aren't overlooked by accident — they're an entire category the industry treats as a rounding error.
"I bought an item that said it was for a large dog… when it arrived it was obviously made for a ~30 lb dog. I'm glad someone realizes big dogs do exist and are loved as much as small dogs."
That gap is the reason we're here. Our job: provide and extend the best possible quality of life for large and giant breeds — and make the ride genuinely fun for the dog and the human. We solve a real problem, and we refuse to be boring about it.
We built something more
Here's the part nobody warned us about: we set out to build better gear, and somewhere along the way we built something more — a family. A family that shows up for rescues, for the dogs nobody else wanted, for each other.
That's the part we're truly proud of.
The pack behind it all
Dino
The Original. Strength, loyalty, heart — and always in the sign-off.
Rocco
The rockstar. Always up to something.
Shelby
Gentle, wise, full of love.
Drew
The storyteller. Real, relatable, a little sarcastic.
Apryll
The warmth, the personal touch — and the one who started it all.
We don't sell products.
We're building a pack.
Three things that feed each other — with the Big Ass Family as the thread through all of them.
Gear
The lifeSPAN catalog — built for big bodies, organized around the jobs that extend a big dog's life: Support, Protect, Anchor, Nest.
Knowledge
The Big Ass Summit and honest education. Pack, not platform.
Belonging
The Family — online and in person. Turning customers into community.
The gear was the front door.
The family is the house.
Meet our AmbASSadors
A whole bunch of our AmbASSadors run the rescues and nonprofits out there fighting for big dogs every day — like Mastiff Rescue of Florida, who took in a 185-pound surrendered Mastiff named Leroy. When you shop with their codes, you back their work.
to yours.
Drew, Apryll, Shelby, Rocco…and always, Dino 🐾