Anxiety and Dogs: Possible Solution

Do you have a dog with thunder anxiety? Really, our Shih Tzu goes wild when she hears a hint of Mother Nature sending out a storm call. Apparently, this anxiety is not an unusual phenomenon in pets.

Yes, we have tried doggie tranqs on her. Yes, even a wee, tiny bit of Xanax has been used (be careful....animals get a minute shaving of a tablet, and sedation can be pretty serious). Obviously, psychotherapy is out of the question with a sentient being who cannot speak. So, what to do to help our furry, four footed kidlet?

The answer may be found in the Thunder shirt:

Thundershirt is a proven solution for most types of dogs coping with thunderstorm and noise anxiety. And no training is required! Simply slip on Thundershirt and watch the symptoms disappear. The price of Thundershirt is less than a single visit to the vets, and just one Thundershirt will treat your dog's anxiety for a lifetime. No drugs or training needed! Perfect for thunderstorm, noise anxiety, fireworks, vacuum noise or camera flash anxiety. Thundershirt (patent pending) does the following for most dogs suffering from noise anxiety: 1) The physical sensation of wearing Thundershirt distracts the dog from focusing on her fears, and 2) Being wrapped in a Thundershirt gives the dog a feeling of safety and comfort. Soon after putting on her Thundershirt, your dog will likely settle down and relax. Many dogs will lie down and weather the storms with little to no further symptoms of noise anxiety.

From a more scientific perspective, according to neurobiologists, many types of traumas can cause nerve damage, leading to dogs having exaggerated responses to stimuli such as loud noises. Applying constantly maintained pressure with Thundershirt provides an unchanging, quieting stimulus that allows the dog to relax

That explanation sounds like baby bundling! And if it works for humans, perhaps it will help our little dog.

You can buy a dog garment here at at Thundershirt. One user on that site reported:

I have to admit, I was a bit hesitant when I purchased this product on the recommendation of a friend. Ten minutes after putting it on my dog, I became a believer. Not only was my dog calmer, but for the first time ever, he didn't wake the neighborhood with his howling and barking. I don't know how it works, but it does!!! I highly recommend this product for any dog that has a fear of thunder or other loud noises.

The product should arrive in today's mail. Leave me a comment if you want to know if it works with our Mercy Dog, since we are expecting thunderstorms this afternoon.

Preparing Fleece for Spinning: Dog Hair and Alpaca Blend

In knitting-with-dog-hair, written about a year ago, the subject of knitting with dog hair was discussed. It was then I started saving my pups' fur for knitting into a new project. Like the book says, "better a sweater from a dog you know and love than from a sheep you'll never meet". The book Knitting with Dog Hair can be purchased at this site on Amazon. It is on my reference shelf, and is full of information about this rather esoteric subject.

Once the fur was gathered from our two dogs and their home-style groomings over the past 18 months, the obvious next step was what to do with it to get it into shape for spinning. It would need some other fiber to mix in with the fur in order to make a good blend.

Luckily, here in western Colorado, there is a farm with 14 alpacas on it. Shearing time was last week, and new acquaintance Cori Elam saved me enough alpaca fur (all white) for the blending. We rendezvous last night at our first weekly summer Farmers' Market in Grand Junction, and I gave her my bag of saved dog fur. It looked like this, and I had about a pound of it:

This fur will be mixed with Cori Elam's alpaca fiber. Cori's website can be accessed at Cori's Western Colorado Alpacas. She has all kinds of alpaca products for sale. Many of her alpaca fibers are imported from Peru; beautiful products were on display at her booth last night.

Back to the preparation process of the fibers: from the site how to prepare fleece for spinning, easy and concise information was gathered regarding the next steps:

Step 1 Take a chunk of fleece about the size of a basketball. Fill your sink with hot water and some dish soap. Step 2 Put the fleece in the sink and let it sink. If you are impatient, you can gently push it down. Slowly move it around but do not "agitate." Agitation will cause it to felt, making it useless for spinning. .... further steps .......remove the fibers and you are ready to spin.

Another website packed with information about using animals' fur is Spinning Straw into Gold. Take a gander at that site if you are interested in reading about one person's vocation with animal fur products. It is amazing.

But what would a knitted project with dog fur blended with wool look like? Sure enough, that source on the internet Ravelry with over 400,000 members world-wide was my best source for tracking down someone who had pictures AND and an explanation of her process of collecting fur. New friend Avedaggio on Ravelry from Boulder says about her dog Mulan's fur:

My mom has a shih-tzu, whom she keeps long-haired. Mulan’s fur is about 8 inches long. To keep her from becoming a matted mess, mom combs her every day and gives her a bath (complete with blow-dry!) every week. Since Mulan was a puppy, mom had been saving the fur she combed out in little plastic bags, and a couple years back she and my dad took it to the Estes Park Wool Market and got someone to spin it up (this was before I learned how to spin). Then I got 1200 yards of 2-ply Mulan yarn for Christmas! It smelled like Mulan right after the bath. It was so funny when we put a skein on the floor to let Mulan investigate– she sniffed and sniffed, and then picked it up, carried it to her favorite corner and curled around it as if it were a puppy! So cute. I ended up knitting a lap blanket for my mother out of it.

So the next steps of blending the alpaca and dog fur are in process. After the washing, carding, and spinning steps are completed, there should be more than enough yarn to whip up something as special as a Mulan's lap blanket shown above!

(Thanks, Avedaggio, for the use of your picture and your entertaining story.)

Our Dogs' Days of Summer

July is hot in western Colorado. Our high temp tomorrow is expected to be 98 degrees F. Wilstar says the Dog Days of Summer are

1 : the period between early July and early September when the hot sultry weather of summer usually occurs in the northern hemisphere
2 : a period of stagnation or inactivity

But as we know, the term orginated ...

In ancient times, when the night sky was unobscured by artificial lights and smog, different groups of peoples in different parts of the world drew images in the sky by “connecting the dots” of stars. The images drawn were dependent upon the culture: The Chinese saw different images than the Native Americans, who saw different pictures than the Europeans. These star pictures are now called constellations, and the constellations that are now mapped out in the sky come from our European ancestors.

Here are our dogs enjoying their Dog Days of Summer:

Knitting with Dog Hair

Knitting With Dog Hair: Better A Sweater From A Dog You Know and Love Than From A Sheep You'll Never Meet (Paperback) by Kendall Crolius (Author)

“Stop Vacuuming and Start Knitting!” Is the Read Bite on the cover of the book.

In the first paragraph of KnittingDogHair, Crolius says

For millions of years, the human race has been living with and benefiting from its relationship with animals. We’ve relied on them for companionship, for transportation, for food - and for our clothing.

What a shame that all our dogs’ fur just goes to waste each time they are groomed. Since I knit, and know a couple of women who spin sheep’s wool, I wondered if it were a crazy idea to start saving my pups’ hair for a future knitting project.

After some research, I came up with a LOT of good information about utilizing dog fur. And, I am now collecting our dogs’ fur. Note picture on the left that shows results from last week’s sheering efforts of the Shih Tzu and Maltipoo.

Natalie Kestecher of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation has a pod cast on www.soundprint.org. Tune in here if you are interested: radio podcast on dogs. It is fascinating and well worth a listen.

The highlights from my listening to Kestecher's show were:

1) a bit of history of how knitters used Great Pyrenees mountain dog hair for Polish and Russian peoples;
2) an Australian speaker regarding dogs, the environment, recycling and other matters pertaining to dogs at International Dog Day where about 20,000 people gathered recently in Sydney, Australia;
3) a woman’s story of Sarah Ben-David, her great grandmother born at the beginning of the 20th century in Poland. She recalls Sarah’s story of farming olive trees in order to get to her end purpose of breeding dogs for the purpose of using their fur for clothing. Her dog hair farms reached all across Europe by the end of Franco’s regime;
4) the psychic relationship of dogs with people

You are likely skeptical at this point. You might think "won’t I smell like a dog if I knit a sweater from dog fur"? The answer is NO. You wear wool sweaters, don’t you? Do you smell like a sheep? NO, of course not. It is all in the cleaning of the fur/wool in preparation of spinning.

This article found on USAToday highlights a couple who speak to the advantages of dog hair made into clothing. They espouse the advantages of dog hair as fodder as being both warm and waterproof.


As for me, I am keeping my dogs happy and groomed, and accumulating their sheerings for a new sweater.

Mercy and Libby (our dogs)