Getting Comfortable

Pets–you gotta love ’em. Our dogs bring joy and laughter to our lives; they’re always up for a good run or a game of fetch. BUT–there’s always a but–these dogs drive me crazy.

Cocoa looks all sweet and innocent, snoozing on the chair, but that puppy likes to chew.

 

In order to keep our house from sustaining damage, the dogs have been relegated to the laundry room when we’re gone and at night. While fewer pillows have been chewed up, our clothes have taken a bit of a beating.

I wasn’t surprised to find chewed up socks and underwear, but Cocoa got bored with that and decided to redesign the MR jeans.

Apparently, that Levi’s patch is overdone, and a few bite marks at the waistband are all the rage. In order to save our wardrobe, I came up with a plan. I would make dog beds and tie chew sticks to them. Our sweet little dogs would be so busy with their treats that they wouldn’t have time to bother with our clothes.

I had all the supplies, a few of the girls’ old comforters, some fabric that I bought for curtains that were never meant to be, and some rope for the trim.

Bogart approved whole-heartedly. He even deigned to test out the cushy-ness factor for me.

I was excited since i had two rather undiscriminating clients, I figured I could try out some new techniques. I’d seen some cute napkins with mitered hems–very professional looking–so I decided to try it out on the dogs. What are they going to do if my corners are wonky? They’ve been known to eat garbage; I don’t think they’ll complain.

Well, it all went swimmingly. Celebrate Creativity has a super, simple tutorial (you can check out here). I just made my “napkins” more like dog-bed-size. When I had two finished “napkins”, I put them wrong-sides together, sewed around three sides (about an inch-and-a-half from the edge), and made some buttonholes on the fourth. Then it was just a matter of tacking the edges together every so often, running the cord through, and adding little chew treats.

So how did it turn out? I finished in the middle of the afternoon, stuck the new dog bed in the laundry room, started dinner, and realized I’d forgotten to take any photos. What was I thinking?

I guess they enjoyed it. The chew element didn’t really work out, but at least they wound up with a cozy pair of beds to lie on. And if you run out other things to chew, there’s always the corner of your bed, the stuffing, or even your buddy’s ear–Cocoa has a problem.

The dogs can usually be found sitting on their beds when I get ready to leave, so I think they like them even without treats.

One little tip in case you decide to make dog beds or napkins, I cut a piece of cardboard to one inch in width to use as a guide while I was ironing. I imagine it would also come in handy if you were making a dozen napkins.

 

And by the by, guess whose sewing machine repair shop just called? I’m thinking more projects are just around the corner.

What have you been making? How do you keep your dogs from chewing up the world?

(OK, so I’ve been messing with my theme for the blog (how it looks). After two years, it was time for something new, but the theme I used on Wednesday was just too hard to read. I hope you like the new one. It might be another two years before I get the courage to shake things up again.)

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