I have a mixed breed dog (we know for sure she is beagle and border collie, but she's a rescue and a mutt) that loves to wear sweaters and decided to try making her one. I used the XL sizing for the first one because she is barrel chested (think Pitbull or mastiff) and when we buy sweaters from the store we have to buy Large or XL. Unfortunately using the XL sizing made it way too long and it wasn't big enough to go over her head easily and the leg holes were way too close to the neck. For my second attempt, I increased the number of stitches from 49 (19 inches) to 59 stitches (24 inches) and I made it shorter for her body size (24 inches from ears to tail total). My final dimensions were 24 inches across the back, 11 inches across the underside, 17 inches long total. Sadly, I still had to improvise where I put the leg holes. For a pure breed, I think the pattern would work. For a mixed breed, I had to improvise quite a bit based on my dog's body shape and measurements. She loves it.

Chrissie makes a good point; I've always invented my own dog sweater patterns but I'm anxious to try one of these.

That being said, always measure/automatically shorten under-pieces for male dogs.

Otherwise, sweaters start smelling NASTY way too soon!

I have to pin up their commercially made sweatshirts for the same reason!

;)

As a beginner I found this pattern to be easy. It's also small enough to bring along to waiting rooms & car rides. I didn't give it 5* because small was too small for my chihuahua. That said, I made the mistake of not doing a gauge sample. I had to redo the underside 3x before it was wide enough. Also, I'll need to fold over the underside about 1" to accommodate my dogs penis, otherwise he'd pee on his sweater.

I kept coming back to this dog sweater while searching through others on different sites. This was the cutest one I found and I found it a pleasure to make. So I made two! It goes together quickly, the written directions are simple to follow and the measurements and diagram are very good. However, I would have shortened the back length about two inches on the small size, or maybe my dogs' backs are shorter!

This pattern is super easy to follow and looks great on dogs! However, I was making mine for a much larger dog (a Vizla/German Shorthair) and I had to make up my own measurements since the "XL"was not very large at all. I just added stitches until it looked big enough and adjusted the rest of the pattern accordingly. If your dog is very narrow in the back you may want to do fewer stitches and then lengthen it before shaping the top. My brother takes his dog up in the snowy Utah mountains in this sweater and he loves it!