I spent a year designing the Sheep Shed before it launched on 12 April 2025. It began as a leather collar lined with wool, which I dropped inside a week, and ended as a collar where the wool is the structure rather than the padding. Three weaves, three colourways, two strap options, all worked out by hand at a bench in Oxford.
I went to Crufts in March 2025, a year into developing the Sheep Shed, and left bored. Plastic everywhere, the same printed patterns recycled across a hundred brands, materials I knew would not hold up after a year of being chewed, dragged through hedges and washed in a sink. Everyone was a sheep, following the herd, changing a colourway here and a print there and calling it new. I came home and decided that the thing I had spent that year making was ready to go out.
My background is not in product design. I came up through music events, nightlife, brand creation and artist development, finding unknown talent and putting it in front of audiences. Before Green Dog I had never made a single thing by hand in my life. I speak Mandarin and had a brief stretch trying to manufacture in China, where I had almost no control over the work, and I came away knowing I never wanted to do that again. The instinct Crufts confirmed was simple. Whatever the herd was doing, I would do the opposite. British materials, one pair of hands, made in Oxford, by me.
The sheep came first, long before the collars
I grew up on a smallholding. My parents were given fourteen black Hebridean sheep, which arrived like a small gang of gothic woodland creatures, all horns and attitude. Then came Lily Lambkin, handed to us by a local farmer because she needed hand rearing. Lily lived indoors at first, bleating around the house and following me from room to room. Later there was Hercules, our ram. The Hebrideans stayed wild and suspicious, but Lily and Hercules came running the second they heard me. Two sheep barrelling across a field towards you is not something you forget.
The other half of it is furniture. My parents were antique dealers, so my weekends were spent at auctions and in showrooms being told not to walk into two hundred year old furniture. My mother had a shop in Burford. My father Christopher Howe built Howe London, and my sister Holly has taken that philosophy into the modern world. I studied Chinese and Business and Management because I thought I should go and follow the money in a city. Origins pull harder than ambition. Real materials, real craft, British hands making British things. All of that was quietly imprinted years before I picked up a needle.
Where the Sheep Shed actually started
The first idea was not the Sheep Shed. It was leather collars lined with wool. I made a few prototypes and quickly realised the design already existed and had been done by British makers for years. Lining is also a hidden detail. The wool sits inside the collar doing useful work where nobody sees it, and it never earns the identity of the collar. That did not interest me.
So I dropped it after about a week and asked a different question. What if the wool was the collar? Not backing, not decoration, but the structural fibre that holds the whole thing together. I already knew weaving from paracord. I had been weaving the personalised paracord collar by hand since the early days of Green Dog, and customers liked the texture and the depth that comes out of a tight weave. The open question was whether wool fibre could be coaxed into the same structure.
Early prototypes were rough. Wool behaves nothing like paracord. It compresses, it holds tension differently, and it needs different splice points. I spent several weeks reworking patterns until the fibre sat where I wanted it. The breakthrough was a three row weave I call the trilobite, named for the way the rows interlock, and it became the basis of the Classic.
Brampton, Dingley and Swaledale are colourways, not breeds
Worth clearing this up, because I have muddled it myself in the past. Brampton, Dingley and Swaledale are the names of three wool styles in Sustainable Rope's range. They are not sheep breeds. Brampton is the charcoal grey and it is the workhorse of the range, dense and happy to take a tight weave. Dingley is the ecru, lighter, and it pairs well with Brampton on the hybrid leads. Swaledale is the third, an ecru rope that does not sit comfortably in the 4mm woven collar structures, so I use it for leads and tassels where its length and lustre do more work. None of the three is dyed. The colour is the colour the fleece arrived in.
Three weaves for three shapes of dog
The collar range settled into three constructions, one for each kind of dog the studio sees most often.
The Brampton Classic uses the three row trilobite weave, 34mm of wool over a 19mm strap, and it is the most popular piece I make by a clear margin. It suits most breeds from spaniels through to retrievers, and the Dingley Classic is the same build in ecru. The Mini uses a two row fishtail weave, 20mm of wool over a 16mm strap, made for small breeds where the full width Classic looks and feels like too much collar. Both the Brampton Mini and the Dingley Mini sit in the small breed and dachshund collars range. The Sighthound is a four row 43mm weave for whippets, lurchers and Italian greyhounds, where a wider band spreads pressure across a long thin neck. That comes as the Brampton Sighthound and the Dingley Sighthound.
Each weave was developed the same way. Weave a sample by hand, fit it to a dog I know, walk it for a few weeks, then either keep it or unpick it and start again. Anyone who has seen me at the bench with a seam ripper knows the rhythm of that.
Leather or BioThane, and how I decide
Halfway through development it became obvious that one strap would not do. The Classic range pairs the wool weave with a veg tanned leather strap, which takes on a patina, moulds to the neck and looks better at five years than it did at five weeks. The Hybrid range keeps the identical wool weave and swaps leather for BioThane, a coated webbing that is waterproof, wipeable and completely indifferent to being submerged. I added the Hybrid because customers kept telling me they wanted the Sheep Shed look on a dog that lived in water. A spaniel in the Lake District does not want leather. A whippet in London probably does not need BioThane.
| Piece | Build | Made for | My verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Classic collar | Three row trilobite, 34mm wool over 19mm veg tanned leather | Spaniels, retrievers, most medium and large breeds | Start here. It is the piece the whole range was designed around |
| Mini collar | Two row fishtail, 20mm wool over a 16mm strap | Dachshunds, terriers, anything under about 10kg | The right call for small dogs. The Classic overwhelms them |
| Sighthound collar | Four row weave, 43mm wool, tapered leather | Whippets, lurchers, Italian greyhounds | Buy this rather than sizing up a Classic. The width is the point |
| Hybrid collar | Same wool weave, BioThane strap in beige or hunter green | Dogs that swim, roll in mud, or live outdoors | Same look, far less fuss. Pick this if water is a weekly event |
| Wool rope lead | 14mm spliced wool rope, 130cm, leather tab at the handle | Owners who want the wool in their hand as well as on the dog | The nicest thing in the range to hold. Not the one for a mud bath |
| Hybrid rope lead | 10mm core whipped in wool, BioThane stopper, 130cm | Daily walking in real British weather | The most practical lead I make. This is the one I use |
| Keyring tassel | Wool tassel bound with 1mm hemp cord, brass ring | The owner rather than the dog | A small thing, but it is what people pick up first at a market |
The Brampton Hybrid in beige and the Dingley Hybrid in hunter green are the two hybrid collars, and the Brampton Hybrid rope lead is the lead I reach for on my own dog. If you want the full wool version instead, the Brampton wool lead and the Swaledale wool lead are both 14mm hand spliced rope.
Six months on real dogs before it went on the shelf
The launch on 12 April 2025 was deliberately soft. The range went out to existing customers in small numbers so I could watch the wool age in real use rather than under workshop conditions. Some collars went to dachshunds, some to whippets, some to working spaniels and one to a Newfoundland. Six months of muddy walks, river swims, garden chewing and the occasional washing machine accident.
What came back changed the production specs in small ways that mattered. The wool rope lead settled at 14mm and 130cm. The hybrid leads settled at 10mm and 130cm. Sighthound stitching tightened up after I saw how much sideways load a strong whippet puts through a strap. Mini sizing was recalibrated by a few millimetres. None of those decisions came from a design brief. They came from real dogs and from owners telling me what was working.
The tassels came out of the same period. Customers kept asking for something of their own, so I made the Brampton keyring tassel and the Swaledale keyring tassel from the offcuts, bound with 1mm hemp cord. They cost me almost nothing in material and they are still the first thing anyone touches on a table.
Why it is called the Sheep Shed
I came back from Crufts thinking everyone there was a sheep following the same herd. The name is a small joke about that, with the obvious second meaning given the material. The shed is also where the work happens, which in my case is a bench in Oxford where every piece in the range is woven, spliced and bound by my hands. There is no team and no factory. It is one person and a bench, and I have never trained as a leatherworker, a weaver or a textile designer. I came at all of it sideways.
What to know before you order
Everything is made to order and takes two to six working days. The hardware is solid brass, guaranteed for twelve months, and if it fails inside that window I repair or replace it. There are 209 reviews on Judge.me at an average of 4.99, and about a third of customers come back for a second piece, which is the number I actually pay attention to. Sizing is the only thing people get wrong, so use the measuring guide before you order rather than after. Brush the wool when it is dry and leave it at that. The full range sits in the Sheep Shed collection, split into Sheep Shed collars and Sheep Shed leads if you already know which you want.
Frequently asked questions
How did Ed design the Sheep Shed wool dog collars?
The range started as a leather collar lined with wool, an idea Ed dropped within a week because the design already existed and the wool was hidden. He then applied hand weaving techniques from his paracord work directly to wool fibre, developing a three row weave he calls the trilobite over several weeks of prototypes. Every weave was fitted to a real dog, walked for a few weeks, then kept or unpicked.
What is the difference between the Sheep Shed Classic and Hybrid ranges?
Both use the identical hand woven British wool. The Classic range pairs it with a veg tanned leather strap that develops a patina and moulds to the neck. The Hybrid range swaps leather for BioThane, a coated webbing that is waterproof and wipeable. Choose Classic for dry and mixed walking, Hybrid for dogs that swim or live in mud.
Which Sheep Shed collar suits a small dog or a sighthound?
The Mini is a two row fishtail weave, 20mm of wool over a 16mm strap, designed for dachshunds, terriers and small breeds where a full width collar looks heavy. The Sighthound is a four row 43mm weave for whippets, lurchers and Italian greyhounds, where the extra width spreads pressure across a long thin neck. The Classic sits between them at 34mm of wool over a 19mm strap.
When did Green Dog launch the Sheep Shed range?
Green Dog soft launched the Sheep Shed on 12 April 2025 after a year of development. Rather than a full release, the first pieces went to existing customers so the wool could be tested on real dogs for six months. Lead lengths, sighthound stitching and Mini sizing were all adjusted during that period before the range became a fixed part of the catalogue.
Why is the Green Dog wool range called the Sheep Shed?
Ed came back from Crufts in March 2025 thinking every brand there was a sheep following the same herd, so the name is a joke about that as much as a reference to the material. The shed is also literal. Every piece is woven, spliced and bound at one bench in Oxford by one person, with no team and no factory behind it.
Are Brampton, Dingley and Swaledale sheep breeds?
No. They are the names of three wool styles in Sustainable Rope's range, not breeds of sheep. Brampton is the charcoal grey wool and the workhorse of the collar range, Dingley is the ecru, and Swaledale is an ecru rope used for leads and keyring tassels rather than woven collars. None of the three is dyed.
If you want to see the Sheep Shed range up close
Browse the Sheep Shed →The Brampton Classic →Measuring guide →
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