Knit Dog Sweaters

Especially short-breed breeds, small or older dogs sometimes have problems with the heat regulation. You can buy wonderful dog sweaters. But also Selfmade fans get now perfect instructions to knit the dog sweater for their four-legged friend himself. The idea was Theresia Ostendorfer. We interviewed her.

DEXDOG: How did you get the idea to make a knitting book for dog sweaters? Safe by your own dog?

Theresia Ostendorfer: No, I do not have a dog, but a cat. Or I had a cat, a Norwegian forest cat, when I started designing models for the dog scratch book. Caramello had even kindly attracted one of them to the test, and anyway the process of development was usually observed from my lap.

DEXDOG: And without a dog — is not it difficult to knit the right sizes and to keep the proportions so that the dog sweater fits?

Theresia Ostendorfer: Of course, it would have been easier to have a dog of the right size, at which I could measure. I have simply two plastic models on the Internet ordered and then released. There is also a table for different dog sizes. This is also published in the book so you can knit even for smaller dogs than for a pug (size L). Using the table of centimeters for the sizes S, M and L and the information on the label of the respective wool, you can use a bit of mathematics to calculate how to knit your own dog.

DEXDOG: That sounds a bit complicated now? What pre-requisites do you need to make a dog sweater out of your book?

Theresia Ostendorfer: Well, two right, two left you should already knit. Otherwise, the patterns are easy to rework. And they are mostly only on the back, so you can knit even smaller sizes, because you simply have fewer stitches in the areas in which no pattern is knitted.

DEXDOG: Your book contains all models, which are in the costume look. Why only costumes?

Theresia Ostendorfer: Costumes belong to the rural life, dogs belong to life in the country — there was the motto for this book. In addition, there should be even Dirndl for dogs, which I find something exaggerated, but there was at least the costume sweater not far.

Dog on the road: At any rate, the model that presents your sweater makes a good figure in the costume sweaters. Is your book just suitable for pugs?

Theresia Ostendorfer: No, not at all. I have — as I said — just knitted for my two plastic dogs. By the way, over a period of five years … For a long time I did not know how to find a dog that would be a model for the photos. Chance came to my rescue. I suddenly discovered my son Constantin with a pug on his lap at Facebook. “That’s him!” I thought. And it turned out that Emma, the mops, is the dog of the friend of Constantine’s partner. The two run together a restaurant in Bad Homburg. In the restaurant Lindenallee we also took the pictures with Emma.

DEXDOG: Was it difficult to photograph a dog who has never worked as a model?

Theresia Ostendorfer: So the Emma is a natural valley. She has swept every sweater hopelessly and posed beautifully. Well — I admit, a piece of sausage was in the game. And because Emma was so good, she gets a sweater knitted. She chose the model that best suits her coat.