Doggy Diapers

Now before I hear any whining from ya'll who believe that dogs should do their business out of doors. Let me explain. I have 8 dogs. They make alot of poo. I have to clean up said poo from the yard. But only for 7 of those dogs. The "other" dog (we will refer to her as "JJ") is unable to do her business out of doors. She is handicapped and she cant walk, and she enjoys her day in a childs playpen. Soooo, my solution to the the amazing problem of washing three loads of towels a day was to come up with a diaper that could be easily made, easily washed and easy to maneuver on to and off of "JJ". I got the idea from washable baby diapers and you can make these for any size dog, handicapped or not. So lets get to down to business!

PS: JJ is not dead, even though she appears lifeless.

First, some sewing skill is required. Not much but some.
Second, you do need a sewing machine.

Third, get your materials:
- a chamois (or shamie), the kind you dry your car with. (I got a three pack at a Wal-mart for cheap)
- Thin elastic
- Velcro
- Measuring tape
- Thread
- Paper bag or paper towel or any paper
- Marker

So first we need talk about measuring your particular dog. I will use my dog as an example and she is very small. She weighs in at a whopping 1.5 lbs!

-Remember to write it down! (Your dogs measurements, not mine!)

- measure around the waist (JJ is 9 inches around the waist)

- Measure from. . . ahem. . . butt to waist (JJ is 5 inches)

-Measure between the legs (JJ is 2.5 inches and I forgot to pic that)

Bare with me, this may sound complicated. But this just making a pattern. This is where the paper bag comes in handy. Try to make a rough pattern. When you are done, put it on your dog to see how it fits then make adjustments as nesessary. Use my shape as a rough guide.

- Double the butt-to-waist measurement. This is the long of the diaper. I added two inches for the padding, making mine 12 inches long.

- The part labeled (front) came from the waist measurement. I shortened it by 1 inch. Making the "front" 8 inches wide on the end.

- Between her legs was 2 inches. I added 1 inch to make the middle of the diaper 3 inches.

- The butt end is 1/2 of the waist measurement. Making it 4.5 inches.

- The tabs on the "front" end are 1.5 inches.

To make things run a bit faster I folded my chamie in half and traced the pattern onto it to make two diapers.


IMPORTANT: Save your SCRAPS, we will use these later!

Sewing steps are as follows:
-Zig-Zag around perimeter. To make my diapers a bit hearty and keep them from fraying I sewed a zig-zag stitch all the way around the perimeter of the diaper.

- Sew elastic on both sides of the "middle". (This is where the sewing skills come in. I had no idea how to work w/elastic. For this I sewed through the elastic, pulling it tight as I went) 

- I used the scrap here to make a "pad". By rolling up the scraps and make a tube, then sew it in the middle of the diap. (This is not entirely necessary, but sure cuts down on "breakthrough leakage".)
    
-Last step is to cut and apply velcro. I sewed it on, as these will be washed multiple times and adhesive velcro wont stay very long.
           -(Long velcro goes on back of "butt"; tab velcro goes on body side of "front")

Remember that perfection is not key here. These are doggy diapers!

To get the tail hole:

-Put your new diap on your doggy
-find where the tail should poke through.
-take diap off of doggy and snip where the tail goes through
-as an extra precaution against tearing, sew around the hole.

You are now done. Put the diap on the doggy and wait for the business.