Dog Sweaters

It's absolutely NOT sweater weather anymore, but I've just finished knitting another sweater for my Catahoula Leaopard Dog, Opal, and I'd like to share all the sweaters I've made for her in the past as well.

First I'd like to say that I believe clothes are for utility, and if your dog doesn't need clothes, I would recommend not putting clothing on your dog. A sweater is nice for cold weather, but it doesn't protect your dogs feet so you still have to be very careful their feet aren't getting too cold as well!

I also believe that some dogs might not enjoy wearing clothes so you've got to be careful not to make wearing clothes something the dog hates. The first time I tried putting a sweater on Opal I was very surprised to learn that she was so excited to wear her sweater. She enthusiastically put it on (with my help) and seemed to enjoy continuing to wear it.

I started looking for free dog sweater patterns online and came across this neat pattern where you could input your dogs measurements and it would output a pattern tailored to your dog's size. I wondered how effective it might be, but I put in Opal's measurements and quickly knitted up a little sweater using their pattern. This is what I got:

This sweater is pretty ugly. In fact I have no idea where it is right now, but from there I modified the pattern even more to get a better fit. That's when I made this sweater:

I really enjoyed learning how to knit the intarsia so I could use several colors to make a nice argyle pattern.

And once I had finished that sweater I felt like I was a pro at intarsia and decided I'd like to try a more complicated pattern using the same method. It didn't come out as well as I would have liked. The yarn pulls in weird places and is loose in others. If you don't look too closely it's still an okay sweater though! This one compliments her natural colors as well, and it's got a lovely wintery feel to it, which is exactly what I was going for.

I was quite disappointed in how that last one came out so it took me a while to feel like making another one, but I was finally inspired by texture as it compares to the 2D patterns I had been using with multiple colors. This time I wanted to make a sweater which had a lovely texture to it, and so I searched and searched for an interesting pattern. The color choice is a bit unfortunate - I feel this sweater makes her look a bit like a clown - but this is the best fitting sweater yet!