Make a warm dog vest from sweatpants leg

Every January, our cocker spaniel Galahad suffers from some kind of allergic itch. We end up clipping all his hair off and bathing him in prescription shampoo to keep him from nibbling himself raw. This may be Florida, but January *is* actually the cold month, so the poor little guy needs protection from the cold.

I had a couple pairs of sweatpants that shrank and ended up about capri-length (argh! argh! I *hate* too-short pants!) and so I cut off the legs and made them into barn shorts. I was looking at the cut off legs, with their fleece and the elastic at the bottom, and realized that I could probably recycle them as vests for the poor cold dog.

This was an eaaaaasy project--and considering I usually get sweatpants at Walgreens for 3/$10, it might even be cheap enough to just buy sweatpants to make into dog vests. (Huh. Maybe that's why they shrink...) The second one of these that I made took about 5 minutes.

Step 1 Materials

Materials needed for this project:

• Thread for sewing machine or hand sewing
• I needed one and a half sweat pants legs. For a larger dog, you might need two, three, four legs.

Tools needed:

• Scissors
• Sewing machine or hand sewing needle

Comments

[CatTrampoline]

Nice 'ible. This works for skinny old cats, too. I used a leg from kid sweatpants as a cat sweater one year during a snowstorm. Bertie looked ridiculous, but he was happy because he got to prowl in the yard in spite of the cold. I think the crows were laughing at him.

[joesticklin]

I want to say thank you for this great idea. I have a pointer that shivers all the time so i decided to find an old pair of sweatpants... that are 'capri's' on me as well... LOL.  It will take her getting used to wearing her 'new sweater' but it will keep her warmer on those cold walks.  Thanks for the smart instructable... took me about an hour to complete. Molly, the dog, says thank you as well.  Have a great day!!!

[sgsidekick]

This is a great idea! My mom-in-law has Yorkies who are kept in a puppy cut. they could use this! I'll have to hit Goodwill and see if they have kid sweats! Thanks for posting!

[uguy]

Nice reuse. 2 lucky and handsome doggies. Well done.

[galadriel]

Thanks! Tho I assure you that Galahad is *much* more handsome when he's got his hair :)