Dogs and Food and Dirt: Schutzhund...er, Pschutzhund Sleeves

Sheila, my lovely Sheila, was apparently separated from her littermates far too soon, and after that, she was never around other dogs...at least, for the formative months. That is to say, she never learned bite inhibition. Yes, bite inhibition can theoretically be taught to a dog who didn't previously learn it from its littermates, but I never did it. So shoot me.

And Sheila loves to play wrestle, but no sane dog will play with her because she's way too rough. So I play with her. And I've got the marks to prove it. My arms are always littered with a number of bruises, in various states of healing.

Now that I'm on break, I've decided to do something about this. Oh no--not TRAIN her. Goodness. How silly. No, I'm going to make a pair of Schutzhund Sleeves. Or, since she's not a working breed dog, and these are only going to be Pseudo-schutzhund Sleeves, I'm calling them Pschutzhund Sleeves. Tee hee.

It being the end of the month, I'm going cheap on the materials (I may regret this, of course. A real Schutzhund sleeve, the cheapest, costs about $70).

*Old pair of blue jeans (note the holes)

*Fleece

*2 oven mitts (from the Dollar Tree)

I cut a length of fleece, 26" x 10".

Fold that over, and sew a seam on the long side.

Turn that right-side out, in half upon itself. Oh, just look at the picture.

Fold back the outer layer, tuck the inner layer inside the oven mitt, by about an inch.

Smooth the outer layer back over the outside of the oven mitt. Hand stitch fleece sleeve to oven mitt, taking care that you're stitching through all of the layers. This is your inner padding for the ultimate finished product.

The outside covering of the sleeve will be the denim. Using the sleeve/mitt as a pattern, trace sewing and cutting lines on one leg of the blue jeans. Take care to account for the seam allowance around the thumb...I "moved" the whole thing over about 1/4 inch for this (as you can see by the multiple tracing lines I left in the attempt. I'm also using the existing outer seam of the jeans for one side. Cuz I'm lazy.

Sew the outer cover, then hem it.

Stuff the inside in the outside. Is it good? Darn tootin'! Doin' the Big Fig Newton! But I digress. You're done! Now make another one and try them out!

DISCLAIMERS! DISCLAIMERS! DISCLAIMERS!

If you're stupid enough to think that you won't get hurt using $2 Pschutzhund Sleeves when playing with a dog that has no bite inhibition, then you're an idiot. You WILL get hurt. Don't blame me if you do. See, here's the video to prove it.

So, how do I rate this project? A qualified success. The bite pressure was definitely lessened (i.e., I didn't feel like my bones were being crushed); however, she was still able to grab and pinch some skin, so it wasn't a pain-free experience. Also, the blue jean material is no match for her teeth...the sleeve suffered damage in our first and brief encounter. Nevertheless, we were still able to play longer and more roughly than we ever could with just my bare arms.