Does your dog love to swim? Does he go dock diving? Maybe you bathe her a lot? We all know staying wet isn’t necessarily great for their skin and coat, or your car or living room! Wouldn’t you love to have a convenient, travel friendly, hands-free solution for helping dry off your canine pal? How about a towel robe for your dog!
You’ve probably seen these in pet shops or online, but man they’re like $40-80! That seems silly when you can buy a towel for $5.
If you have access to a sewing machine or a needle and thread, you can make one for your dog for less than $20 of supplies.
If anyone happens to try this, please do message or tag me! I’d love to see what you made! If you need any tips or more explanation, feel free to send me a message.
Step 1: Gather your supplies
You’ll need a towel. A cheap towel, an old towel, a more durable towel. Any towel will do. Then you’ll want some thread. I used extra strength outdoor thread because I had some, but any thread is find. You’ll need some velcro strips. Do NOT get the ones with sticky stuff on the back. You want sew-on velcro. Velcro is also called “hook and loop tape”, and generic brand is fine! Just do not get an “adhesive” one – that has sticky stuff on the back. You want “non-adhesive.” The sticky backing makes your sewing needle angry.
Here’s an example:
You can find hook and loop tape at craft stores, the craft section of Wal-Mart, etc.
Question: I can’t find velcro or my dog doesn’t/I don’t like the sound of velcro.
You can try using buttons in place of the velcro OR you can use something like cord or shoelaces to make ties instead. You can put a tie at the neck or sew the neck closed where the velcro would be, and make two thinner waist straps that tie at the top.
Step 2: Measure your towel
Throw that towel over your dog’s back to see how long it needs to be. The narrow end of the towel should drape over your dog’s head or neck. If you want to be able to pull the robe over your dog’s head like a hood, then put the towel like the photo. Otherwise, you can just drape it around the neck. You want to mark along the back, however long the robe needs to be to cover your dog’s back.
My dog is just big enough that the towel hangs nicely down her sides without being too long. If you have a smaller dog and the towel hangs too long you can always use a smaller towel OR you will need to cut along one side to cut the excess off. You want the towel to hang a little lower than your dog’s belly because you want the towel robe to be able to wrap under your dog a bit.
So, for a smaller dog pull the towel to one side until one side is the ideal length, and then mark or fold the towel so you know where you’ll need to cut the excess along the side.
Step 3: Cutting
Cut off the excess at the back and/or the side. We are trying to keep as many of the hems the towel already has so you have to do less sewing, by the way. You can cut it differently, or more rounded at the ends, but you’d have to sew more.
Now, you’re going to need the extra piece you cut off the end of the towel to make the belly strap. Cut that baby down to something like this:
You can round the end like I did or leave it square … It doesn’t really matter! If you leave it square, it’ll be slightly less sewing.
*Note: if you want to make this robe without velcro, don’t make this belly strap. Use scraps from your towel or even another fabric to make two narrower straps that go around your dog’s belly and tie above the back.
Step 4: The belly strap
Time for some sewing. Get your sewing machine or needle and thread ready!
You’re gonna take your belly strap piece and flip it so the two “good” sides of the towel are pressed against each other. Easy to tell if you’re using a patterned towel with an obvious good side. If both sides are the same, it doesn’t really matter, just pick one.
Now sew around that baby. The sides and top if you rounded it. Leave the bottom open.
Now you’re gonna turn that baby right side out using your open end.
You can leave your end open for now!
Time to attach your velcro. Two strips near the closed end should do nicely. Pin those in place (or don’t … I don’t pin things often lol) and sew them on.
Step 5: Hemming
Okay, so here’s basically the lazy/easy way of hemming some sides so that the ends of your towel doesn’t fray. You should have at least two ends of your towel that are already hemmed or finished. For the one or two ends that aren’t, you’re going to fold the ends back into themselves. Roll the edge over so that the frayed end is tucked inside. Go ahead and sew the edges like that.
Your hemmed edges should look like this, with the rolled edge underneath and sew inside:
Step 6: Attaching the belly strap and velcro
*Note: if you’re not using velcro, this step will be different.
You’re going to grab your dog and drape that towel over them again. Then you’re going to take your belly strap piece and figure out exactly where you want it to go so it will attach to one side of your towel, wrap under your dog, and velcro on the other side. Mark and/or pin where your strap needs to attach and where it should meet velcro on the other side.
Now you’re going to sew the open end of the belly strap to the good side of your towel where you marked it. You should sew the open end down/closed now too. The velcro on the strap should be facing down.
Pin your prickly velcro to your towel where you marked. Again, two strips is probably good.
*Note: if you’re not using velcro, you’ll have to sew your two straps to either side of the robe so that they can wrap under the dog’s belly and tie at the top of the back. Again, sorry I don’t have pictures for this version. I will try to get on making one and posting a separate tutorial!
Step 7: Neck velcro
Pin your velcro like this on one end of your robe and sew in place:
Note: If you aren’t using velcro, you can try a button, snap, draw string, or some cord to tie into a bow instead.
Step 8: Enjoy!!
Throw that robe over your dog. Attach the neck velcro like so:
Slip that belly strap under your dog and velcro it to the other side.
Boom!
I highly recommend giving your dog a quick toweling with a regular towel before throwing this on. And of course obviously only use this while supervised!
Please send or tag me if you make this, I’d love to see it!