Raise a Green Dog!

A few make your owns - dog boots, raised dog feeder, harness vest and more!

Posted: 25 Oct 2009 08:15 AM PDT

We are always on the lookout for ways to save money, re-use items we have around our home, or just make dog necessities out of old, unused materials. Today we are sharing a few we found from some great folks we encountered surfing around the Internet.

Here is a pawsome tutorial on how to take the old hardware from your worn out dog's collar, and make a shiny new collar using material you have lying around the house and gathering dust.

We recommend creating the collar with heavier material to make the collar stronger. Head on over to see this, a great tutorial on making a dog's collar in just about 15 minutes from The Sewing Blog.

Raised dog feeders are all the rage lately. They can offer your dog some very real health benefits by helping them maintain better posture when eating and drinking, causing less stress on their back and joints; which can be very important for senior, arthritic or dogs with back problems. Just make sure they are right for your dog, because recent studies are showing that raised feeders may not be the right thing for dogs prone to bloat.

Those raised feeders can be super expensive, if you've priced them lately. But there is a solution - make your own!!! Here are some pawsome instructions for making a very cool raised feeder from an old wooden crate. If you are like our family, we have a few old wine crates just gathering dust in the garage, or you can construct your own crate with unused or reclaimed wood, and then stain and treat the wood with an environmentally friendly, safe and non-toxic stain and sealer.

It's starting to get chilly out there, and you know what that means in a lot of parts of the country? Yep, snow, ice, painful ice balls between your dog's toes, dangerous ice melting chemicals and more. So what's a pup pawrent to do? Make your dog some home made boots with reused material, save lots of money, protect and make Winter more comfortable for your dog!

Here is a great tutorial and pattern for making very simple dog boots. The cool thing is you can reused some strong material you have lying around the house, or an old holey sweatshirt, and even reuse some velcro that you saved from other projects and products. Try to find material that will be the least water absorbent.

The other day it was one of those chilly days. Mum is always concerned for me when the weather turns sharply cold - because I am prone to pulling muscles from not warming up enough before going for our hikes. So, she had my coat on me, and my harness, but guess what? They weren't compatible! So Mum thought, why not figure out how to make a coat and harness in one!

We searched the Internet and found this pawsome tutorial on making a dog harness vest. What a great idea! It could be modified to be a full warm coat as well as a harness, and we could use some old material we have around the house that would be nice and warm and sturdy for me. Interested? Head on over and see the tutorial for this dog harness vest.