DIY dog Crate Mat

DIY DOG CRATE MAT

So this weekend I was going to do a dog Christmas themed post about remaking old ugly Goodwill purchased sweaters into stockings and stuffing them with doggy themed Christmas presents... unfortunately... I went out for a couple hours and the pups had a field day devouring their Christmas presents early... so alas no stocking post for now. 

Instead I am going to do the post I had planned for January:

Over the summer we rescued a new pup:

And like all pups in my life housebreaking involved getting a kennel: We had one of those kennels with the pull out plastic bottoms for easy cleaning. These are great in theory, however I'm a softy and put the kennels in my room and I'm a light sleeper and every time he would roll over I would wake up. So I put a blanket in there with him to soften the noise, but he would get all tangled and upset.. see:  

upset pup!

And I'm sure he would look over to his roommate and see that our other pup Mitzi with her cool crate mat that I made her last year and he got jealous. See.. she's gloating...

So to make the mat you will need:
Thread
Sewing machine (or bionic hands.. either works)
Two layers of fleece the dimensions of the crate base
Quilt batting the dimensions of the crate base (I used the half inch thick kind because we live in Arizona and any thicker would be too hot to lay on)

Ok so step one was to cut out the fabric the size of the crate base:

So with the wrong sides facing out and the batting on top I sewed along the edges leaving about 6-8 inches on one side so I could flip it right side out. 

Then I closed off the hole by sewing the edges.

And from prior experience with Mitzi's mat I tacked each of the corners down so the material wouldn't shift after being washed. 

When its finished it looks something like this (cat not included)

Here it is in the crate: (notice the disgust in Mitzi's face that's she's not "special" anymore)

Now the following pics shows just how spoiled pets at my house are.. yes those are ergonomically correct memory foam pillows and yes he's tucked in

Until next time

Bre

Bad mommy to the four legged :(

Yep you read right I was a bad mommy today. I noticed Mitzi had some creapy long nails clacking on the tiles today so I made Mitzi "bang" (or play dead):

This is how I've found it best to do maintenance on her such as brushing her teeth, cleaning her ears and clipping her nails. All went well, my clippers have a guard on them and Mitzi is pretty patient with her nails getting clipped so all was going well.... until the LAST TOE.... yep... the LAST one... WHY ME!?!? So the guard fell off just as I was clipping the last to and then snip! off goes a nice sized chunk of her nail... and then the blood. :( man I felt bad

I do have to note that Mitzi is the ONLY dog I've ever come across that didn't yip when I clipped too far... strange patient dog that she is. So I have done this before to other dogs and have used the quick stop that can be bought in the pet stores.... or I'll use a bar of unseated soap if push comes to shove... BUT I didn't have either! So after some quick research (pun intended) I came up with this:

DIY nail Quick stop:
1. Compress and clean the cut nail
2. With a clean rag or paper towel wrap the toe and hold for a couple minutes to slow the flow of blood.

3. Once the blood is no longer gushing mix equal parts baking soda and corn starch together and pack it around the nail:

4. Leave the mixture on the nail and compress for a few more minutes

5. Dust off the foot, but DON'T dust off where the mixture has caked around the nail. (this will come off naturally when the nail gets a natural scab. It will look like this:

6. Finally don't let your pup move for the next half hour at least. Disturbing the foot can knock off the caked mixture and reopen the wound on the toe and that leads to more blood! Luckily Mitzi is really good at playing dead (if I make her stay like this she ends up taking a nap so it works out).