I was planning a Thanksgiving trip to the beach in South Carolina and was worried about my older yellow labs getting chilled when they were still a little wet from swimming. No matter how dorky they might look I decided they should have coats to keep them warm.
Coming up with a pattern
I did some research on the internet to get ideas about the pattern. One of the sites I found was SewDoggyStyle.com which offered measuring and pattern suggestions. After measurements I drew out the pattern on craft paper. I while back I bought a roll of paper at Lowes that was intended for taping on floors, but I keep it on hand for patterns.
I don’t know about other dogs, but the whole trying on the pattern experience should have been captured on video. Having never done anything like this to my dogs before they couldn’t figure out what I was doing with the paper. Ellie wouldn’t have any of it, so I finally wrestled it onto Nikki and marked it for some adjustments. The top edge of the pattern below was on the fold of the fabric.
Pattern cut out and ready to cut fleece pieces
Constructing the coats
I had pieces of fleece left over from other projects that were big enough for the coat pattern. I wanted two layers of fleece for each coat. I know from doing fleece blankets for Project Linus the double fleece is much warmer than a single layer. I would have preferred yellow with black for both of them, but I had enough yellow for 2 pieces, and then 1 black, and one blue.
Pieces laid out flat so I could pin the layers together
I used the same technique as the Project Linus blankets. After pinning the layers together I put a crocheted blanket edge all the way around the coat.
Below is the fleece with blanket edging and the Velcro pieces pinned and ready to sew on.
Velcro pinned in place and ready to sew
Ellie avoided me like the plague so Nikki ended up being the model again
Ellie avoiding and Nikki modeling
I took it as a good sign that Nikki was comfortable enough wearing that coat she would lay down on the floor.
Nikki laying down with blanket on
The dogs wore them after getting wet at the beach and while sleeping in my camper when absolutely arctic weather blew in on a trip over Christmas and New Year. They had no problem with me putting them on and keeping them on all night. I like to think they knew I was just trying to take care of them with this odd new behavior.
The only problem with the coats, and I knew this going into it, is that Yellow Labs are prolific shedders and that hair sticks like glue to fleece. Maybe a little extra insulation?
