Dog Tags

I can't stand the dog tags that hang down, and in my area, you're required to have the tag to prove the rabies vaccination.  The rattle, make noise, and I actually had a dog darn near hang themselves on a fence from a hanging dog tag years ago.

I made these specifically for that reason.  I wanted a tag that would give the name of the dog, address, phone, and rabies info.  I discovered I couldn't fit that on a 1" tag without making it so small the resolution did not come out… so I just made it with two tags.  One for Name, Rabies #, and Phone #, and one for Name, Phone #, and Address #.

The first iteration was with poly carbonate, since I assumed these would get beaten up pretty good.  The orange tags in my picture have now lasted maybe two years on my one dog.  My other dog they cracked in the first few weeks.  I made a set from PC for my sister in law, and hers cracked, too.  I don't know if I did something wrong on the print, since that set came about a year after the first set.  Don't know.

I made a little triangular shape to support the whole thing, and I cut it off with some nippers like you'd use for tile.  With the poly carbonate, it was very brittle and I broke a few tags with the nippers just pulling that little support off.

So, I came up with the brilliant idea (at least for me) to use TPU… and it's been perfect.  I shaped the PC tag with a curve, but with the TPU, it naturally just forms to your dog's neck.  The little triangle support piece comes off much easier with TPU, and quite honestly TPU seems to be stronger, at least more tenacious/ductile might be better words for it.  Not as hard but also not as brittle as the PC.  The TPU also holds the letters just fine, at least it did for me.

I added a Fusion 3D file so you could edit it yourself.  I would highly recommend 100% infill on this one, and I highly recommend TPU or Flex of some sort or another.