SÖZE
Our Story

He wasn't
limping.
He was suffering.

"I watched him slow down for months. I thought he was getting older. The vet thought it was arthritis. We were both wrong — and it cost him months of comfort." — Rhett Rumery, Co-Founder

01
The Dog

Söze.
The reason this exists.

Söze. A Pit Bull. Stubborn, fast, and completely convinced he's in charge. He has opinions about everything — where to sit on the couch, which route to take on a walk, whether the cat deserves breakfast.

He was, as it turned out, hiding something from me for a very long time.

Söze — Rhett's Pit Bull
SÖZE
Pit Bull · 2016 – 2023
02
The Signs I Missed

He slowed
down. I called
it aging.

It started subtle. He'd pause on stairs he'd never thought twice about. He'd get up a little slower in the mornings. He still ran. Still played. Still ate everything in front of him.

So I didn't worry. Dogs slow down. That's what aging looks like.

But that wasn't what aging looked like. That was what pain looks like in a dog who doesn't know how to tell you he's hurting.

03
The Diagnosis

Degenerative
Myelopathy.
Too late.

When we finally got the diagnosis, the disease had already progressed significantly. DM — degenerative myelopathy — is a progressive neurological disease that attacks the spinal cord. It can affect any breed. It causes weakness in the hindquarters, loss of coordination, then paralysis.

The early signs? Changes in gait. Subtle asymmetry. Altered movement patterns. Exactly the things a wearable with gait analysis would have caught.

The tragedy wasn't the diagnosis. The tragedy was that by the time we knew, the window for intervention had already closed. The months where we might have slowed progression, adjusted treatment, bought more quality time — those months were behind us. He'd spent them in quiet pain while I told myself he was fine.

How it happened

The timeline
I didn't know existed.

Month 1–3
Gait changes begin
Söze's stride symmetry begins shifting. Left hindlimb swing duration shortens by ~8%. Invisible to the eye. Measurable by sensor. He runs. He plays. Nothing looks wrong.
Month 3–6
Pain signals escalate
Heart rate variability compresses. Resting HR elevates slightly. He pauses on stairs. I notice but attribute it to getting older. The vet agrees at a routine check. Nothing flagged.
Month 6–9
Activity drops 30%
He wants shorter walks. Reluctant to jump into the car. I get him an electric lift. I'm being a good owner. I have no idea he's in constant discomfort. No alert. No data. Just my best guess.
Month 11
Diagnosis: Degenerative Myelopathy
The neurologist confirms DM after a full workup. The disease is advanced. We are told the early intervention window was narrow — and we missed it. We adjust. Physiotherapy. Pain management. Finding what still brings him joy.
After
The question I can't shake
If I'd known at month two — if I'd had a single data point telling me something was wrong — what would have been different? That question didn't leave me. It became Perfect Paw. And I'm not done answering it.

GPS trackers
don't find
pain.

The pet wearable market had one answer: know where your dog is. That's not the problem.

The problem is that 70% of dog pain goes undetected until it's severe. No tracker solves that. No activity counter solves that. Pain detection requires a fundamentally different kind of sensor — and a fundamentally different kind of AI.

What I had
A GPS collar. I knew exactly where Söze was at all times. I had no idea he was in pain.
What I needed
Gait asymmetry data. HRV compression. A pain score. An alert sent months earlier — before the window closed.
What we built
The Ruff. The only wearable built from the ground up to detect pain — not location, not steps. Pain.
The difference
Pain detection isn't a feature you add to a tracker. It's a completely different product category.

We believe no dog
should suffer
in silence.

Pain is the signal
Everything else is noise. Location, steps, sleep — those are nice. Knowing your dog is in pain before they show it is the only data that changes what you do next.
Early is everything
Eleven days earlier. That's the average lead time The Ruff gives you over visible symptoms. In degenerative conditions like DM, eleven days is the difference between intervention and observation.
For every dog
Söze was one dog. There are 90 million dogs in the US alone. Some of them are going through what he went through right now — quietly, stoically, without a word. Söze made sure I couldn't look away from that. This is what I'm doing about it.
The People

Built by people
who've been there.

Rhett Rumery
Co-Founder & CEO
Built Perfect Paw after Söze's diagnosis. Spent months watching him slow down before understanding what was actually happening. Couldn't un-know it — so he built the thing that would have told him sooner.
Alex Oberhauser
Co-Founder & CTO
Leads sensor architecture, edge AI, and firmware. Previously built embedded systems at the intersection of hardware and machine learning. Designed The Ruff's multi-sensor fusion stack from the ground up.
Dmitry Gordiyevsky
Senior Founding Engineer
Core engineer driving the development of The Ruff's software infrastructure and systems architecture. Builds the foundational technology that powers real-time data processing and AI-driven health insights.
Dr. Zachary Pollack, DVM
Clinical Veterinary Advisor
Board-certified veterinary internist specializing in mobility and pain management. Validated The Ruff's biomarker detection protocol and its correlation with CBPI and CMPS-SF clinical pain scoring tools.
Dr. Grace McIntosh, DVM
Veterinary Advisor
Practicing veterinarian with deep expertise in canine rehabilitation and chronic pain. Advises on clinical protocols, early detection thresholds, and translating biometric signals into actionable veterinary guidance.
Dr. Dean Adkins
Medical Research Advisor
Brings deep experience in biomarker research and pain science methodology. Guides The Ruff's clinical validation framework, study design, and the translation of multi-signal data into publishable research outcomes.
Söze's pain became our mission.

Know before
they show.

Söze's pain became the reason this exists. Every dog deserves someone who knows before they show.

Pre-Order The Ruff