What Size Does He Wear?

Last week, instead of taking the dogs to the dog park one evening, C and I decided to take the by both PetsMart and PetCo (they are located about one block from each other) to look at raincoats for Larry and ponder them for Howie.

I want to make very clear that I know Larry isn’t a tiny dog. But at 25lbs, he is the smallest dog I’ve ever owned. Both his collar and his Wonder Walker harness are of the extra small varieties. I know he’s kind of tall and long, but he’s also really skinny- the terrier version of a bean pole.

We have no desire to try and get him in and out one of the coats with leg holes, so we only looked at the horse blanket style coats.

Based on his collar and harness sizes, but knowing he’s a little longer, we started by looking at the small coats. We pulled one off the rack, looked at Larry, and put it right back. No chance that thing was going to fit him.

Next, we tried the mediums. Medium was a little better, but it still left a good couple inches of his rump exposed and didn’t lay flat against his back. It kept wanting to rise up at an angle from his neck.

So we pulled out a large- a LARGE for my 25lb, skinny ass dog  –coat and tried that. The larges fit length wise just fine, but depending on the brand, did not fasten around his extra small neck very well.

All of the coats at the first store were waterproof outer layer with lined interior, and were more expensive than we’d been thinking about. (And by that I mean the store was charging full price, while the website seems to have them 50% off right now.)

So, we left store one and headed to store two. At the second store, they didn’t have as many lined options, but they did have an unlined option. It had a hood and went over his head, so we didn’t have to worry about fastening it around his neck, which was good, but, given that we once again had to look at the large, we couldn’t deny the possibility that if he got it stuck on something, he could probably pull right out of it. Plus, it was pink (affiliate link). I’ve got nothing against other people/dogs (female or male) wearing pink, but it’s not one of my favorite colors. And it’s not one of C’s either.

It was less expensive than the other coats because it really was just a rain slicker (and it if had come in stereotypical yellow (affiliate link), Larry would have walked out of there with a new coat) but we just couldn’t bring ourselves to buy it.

Other things we discovered- for the most part, if something will fit Larry on the smallest setting, than it will fit June. However, if we were buying June a coat, we would need to get her a medium (despite being bigger than Larry) because of her permanently upright tail.

We also did not try anything on Howie. He is pretty much the same shape and size as Larry, so we’d get them the same size, but we figured he would have only limited patience for trying on clothes.

What have I learned? That I have to try dog clothes on my dogs before purchasing- since my 25lb terrier wears a large and my 35lb beagle wears a medium –but that dog clothes cost literally half as much online as they do in the store.

So do you buy clothes for your dogs? What size to they wear? And do you buy online or from the store?