Why we made Kompact9
It started with an annoyingly long bit of plastic.
Ball throwers are brilliant when you're actually throwing a ball.
For the other 90% of the walk? Not so much. They're long, awkward to carry and have a habit of leaving you holding a slobbery tennis ball when playtime is over.
So we wondered - why can't a proper ball thrower just disappear when you don't need it?
Alex brought the engineering. Karen brought the environmental conscience and the common sense. More prototypes than we care to remember later, the K9 Launcher was born.
Full size for fetch. Small enough to put away.
Kompact9 was never really about just making a smaller stick.
It's about making it easier to play with your dog more often. Something you can throw in a pocket or bag, take on every walk and pull out when it's time for a game.
More chasing. More wagging. More moments together.
That's Playtime, extended.
Turns out, making something smaller is quite a big job...
Months of Design Work
It turns out “make it retractable” is easier said than done.
Every part had to work around the same awkward requirement: feel like a proper ball thrower when extended, then pack down small enough to take anywhere when playtime was over.
That meant months of designing, testing, breaking things and going back to the drawing board.
I like this because it introduces the engineering without getting technical too early.
100+ Iterations & Prototypes
Design → 3D print → Re-design → Repeat!
And we really do mean repeat.
More than 100 iterations and prototypes went into getting the size, shape, mechanism and feel right.
Some worked. Some nearly worked. Some went straight in the “well, that didn't work” pile.
Eventually, we had a K9 Launcher.
Retractable Mechanism
The bit that makes Kompact9, Kompact9.
The telescopic mechanism extends the K9 Launcher to 58cm for fetch, then retracts to just 25cm when you're done.
Getting several moving sections to work together reliably while keeping the whole thing light and easy to carry was one of the biggest engineering challenges in the project.
Full size for fetch. Pocket size for everything else.
Cup Design
Turns out the cup matters too.
Making the handle retract was only half the job. A compact ball thrower isn't much use if it isn't good at actually throwing balls.
So we redesigned the cup geometry to release a standard tennis ball more easily, helping you launch it with less effort.
Less effort for you. More chasing for them.
Recycled by design
Recycled plastic wasn't something we wanted to bolt on at the end. It was one of the design decisions from the very beginning.
We wanted the launcher itself to be made from recycled material — not just put it in a recyclable box and call the job done.
The result is a K9 Launcher made from 100% recycled plastic.
Better use of old material. Same important job: throwing balls for dogs.
Made close to home
Once we had a design we were happy with, we wanted to keep production close to home too.
The K9 Launcher was designed in Britain and is manufactured in Devon. Keeping production close gives us greater control over the product and keeps us much closer to the people actually making it.
Designed here. Made here. Tested enthusiastically by dogs everywhere.
100+ prototypes later... worth it.
What started as a frustration on our own dog walks has now become more than 30,000 K9 Launchers out in the world.
And we're still looking for things that could work a little bit better.
The humans behind Kompact9
and their furry friends!
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Alex
Co-Founder & Head of Product Design and Manufacturing
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Karen
Co-Founder & Operations Lead
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Rio
Chief Product Tester (CPT)
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Poppy
Chief Cuteness Officer (CCO)
