After years of trying different harnesses on Wiggles, I finally found one that is escape proof. While many harnesses market themselves as “no-pull” and “escape proof” I have found their claims to be total bullshit. Wiggles, in a frenzy, has squirmed her way out of every harness I have tried on her.
Until now. Her new harness does something clever that all of the others did not – it has a second strap around her belly behind her rib cage. She has been unable to wriggle out of this. It is an ingenious and obvious design that simply works. I’ve been using it with her for months now.
A problem arose during our first cold snap of the season. All three Wiggle’s coats have slots in they backs to attach a collar or a harness, but this new harness has an attachment buckle that is halfway down her back. Threading the leash through the coat to hook onto her harness is a challenge – especially at 2AM (or even 11AM) when she’s bouncing around like an excited little banshee ready to charge out the door.
I found a dog jacket from the harness company that would work. That’s what I use for Sparkles because she is too big to squeeze into any of Wiggle’s jackets. I was about to buy the same jacket in a smaller size for Wiggles when I had an idea. Could I sew a slot in the right place on her existing jackets? After all, I have four of them for various weather conditions and hate to get rid of them if they were salvageable.
So I did some googling and read my sewing machine manual to learn how to sew a buttonhole. It turns out that it is quite easy. I only had to follow a few clear instructions:
- Attach the special button foot that came with my machine.
- Thread the needle and run it through the foot plate.
- Set the stitch settings and dials for button hole.
- Position the fabric.
- Press the pedal and guide the fabric as the machine sews a little rectangle.
- Use a seam ripper to open the slot.
It took me about an hour to read the instructions, practice on a scrap piece of fabric and then complete this on 4 jackets – including putting them on Wiggle’s to “mark the spot” and dealing with one jacket that had snagging issues due to its thick seams.
When I was done, I felt as if I had created a masterpiece out of thin air.
I am not great at sewing. I am impatient and often rush through, creating uneven hems, a mass of threads when the fabric bunches up or occasionally destroying an item. My machine is basic and doesn’t support the types of stitches in many finished products. Some of the things I’d like to do are impossible given my skill set and equipment.
But for simple stuff, I do OK. And it makes me feel like a magician.