Kingdom Pop Up Pet Paddling Pool

The reason a paddling pool gets used once is nearly always the emptying. Something that has to be tipped out by hand across a lawn that then takes a week to recover does not come back out on the second hot day of the summer, and by the third it is behind the shed.

This one is built around both ends of that problem. It pops up rather than inflating, so there is no pump and no waiting about, and there is a drainage outlet in it, so emptying is a matter of opening something rather than wrestling the whole thing over. The material is a cut-resistant PVC, which is the relevant property for anything a dog is going to stand in with its claws out. Once drained it packs away and comes back out whenever it is wanted again. Kingdom give the approximate measurement as 80 x 21 cm.

• Approximately 80 x 21 cm
• Pops up, no inflation required
• Drainage outlet built in
• Cut-resistant PVC
• Cleans, packs away and is reused
• Made for keeping dogs cool through the summer months

On the depth, and on what nobody has told us. 21 cm is the whole of it, so this is a standing and lying-down pool rather than anything a dog swims in - which for most dogs on a hot day is exactly what they want anyway. But Kingdom publish no weight, no material thickness, no maximum dog size and no guidance whatsoever on how the PVC copes with a determined digger, so cut-resistant is their word rather than a specification you can check against your own dog. A dog that scratches at the bottom of things will find the bottom of this. And any pool with water in it is a drowning risk to a small child, so it wants emptying when you are finished rather than left full overnight.

Who it's for: owners of a dog that flops in cold water rather than swimming in it, and anyone with a small garden and nowhere to store a rigid pool for ten months of the year.