A former food bank manager from North Idaho patented an invention that has launched her into the global market of pet products.

The idea for the "Rocketeer Pack" came from her simple desire to keep her small dogs safe while traveling with her on a moped or as passengers in a vehicle.

"I was trying to find something to put my dogs in and I couldn’t find anything that I felt was safe," said Carolyn Shewfelt, inventor of the Rocketeer Pack. "I’ve been in a couple serious car accidents and I understand the impact of an accident when you see everything fly from the back and smash into the windshield. I started researching and I found pretty much nothing that I thought would work."

At first she used booster seats and harnesses for her dogs to let them look out the window while she was driving. But when she barely avoided a wreck with her Yorkshire terrier-miniature poodles in the car, she realized she needed something more secure.

“I slammed on my breaks and (my dogs) went flying out and snapped at the end of their harness and came back and hit the frame of it and they were both dangling,” said Shewfelt, of Coeur d'Alene. "I was horrified. Their hearts were pounding. I felt them to make sure they weren’t injured. They made it, but I’m just going, ‘I can’t take them anywhere anymore.’"

That close call, which happened about seven years ago, motivated Shewfelt to create something that would keep little and mid-sized dogs more secure while traveling. She had already been working on a prototype for moped rides, so now she had bigger goals of pet safety and comfort.

“I knew I was onto something,” Shewfelt said.

The Rocketeer Pack started as a harness she flipped upside down and augmented with fabric, then "it evolved into something completely different."

This multi-functional harness mechanism connects to the vehicle as a child car seat and uses a system of custom-made buckles and anchors to lift up canines 25 pounds and lighter to give them a window view while keeping them snug and secure.

After countless hours of sewing and hundreds of prototypes, Shewfelt finally patented the version of the Rocketeer Pack that has been certified by the Center for Pet Safety. She licensed the product with ZuGoPet, a pet product company that specializes in fashionable, convenient, affordable and multifunctional products for pets and their humans.

"If you are issued a utility patent or even a design patent, you have created something that no other person has thought of before. If it was easy then everyone would do it," said ZuGoPet founder Juls Bindi of Los Angeles. "People try to patent items every day and fail. This is not an easy task and takes money, time and patience. When you receive the patent is when the real work begins."

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Shewfelt connected with Bindi online while researching pet safety. Bindi said she and Shewfelt share the same vision of protecting people and their pets while traveling in cars.

"The moment I met her I knew she was something special," Bindi said of Shewfelt. "She showed me her homemade version that passed CPS test(ing) so we knew we had to make changes to make it work for the masses. I knew this would be a lot of work, but had faith that we could do it together. We took her idea, made a year and a half of changes to hardware and other structural adjustments, crash tested three more times and it passed."

Bindi said the Rocketeer Pack is "one of the most innovative car seat products that has ever entered into the pet industry."

"Within a $70 billion industry, there were only two other brands who took pet safety seriously," Bindi said. "We needed to step up, disrupt the norm by bringing awareness to keep our family and pets safe in the car. The Rocketeer Pack is opening pet owners' eyes to the dangers of why you shouldn’t travel with your pet not secured in the car and the fact most pet car harnesses on the market have not passed Center For Pet Safety’s simulation test."

The two went to work researching the manufacturing process and vetting different companies that would be able to make this product to the safety standard requirements. Shewfelt said they went to several American manufacturers, but ultimately chose to go overseas because of cost and the specific way the products needed to be crafted.

Seven years in the making and about $200,000 later, the Rocketeer Pack officially launched in late November and immediately appeared on websites around the world.

"I honestly believe that I just did what I felt like I needed to do to keep my dogs safe," said Shewfelt, who resigned from her position as manager of the Community Action Food Bank in Coeur d'Alene to pursue this project.

"This whole thing has been just dropped on me," she said. "I’ll never take that for granted."

The Rocketeer Pack sells for $150 to $175 on www.zugopet.com. Shewfelt said she plans to do some community development with the profits, only 10 percent of which she plans to keep.

"Working where I’ve worked and seeing what I’ve seen, it's going to be something that’s pretty cool,” she said.