People are not the only ones who put on a pound or two over the holidays. It happens to our pets, too.

This morning the Captain took Emma, our field cocker spaniel, to a nearby farm to hunt for ducks. This photo is from yesterday, when we were just out for a walk. Ducks were everywhere.

Ruby, the springer spaniel, was upset that she didn’t get to go. Nearly 12 years old, she’s almost completely deaf now, but she still knew she was being left behind. She felt better after I gave her a little treat and pulled  her doggie bed right beside me by the laptop.

Last night when the Captain was getting things ready for this morning’s outing, he hauled out the little neoprene vest I made for Emma a couple of years ago.

“You’d better try it on her,” I said. “She’s put on a couple of pounds.” (After all, it’s just after Christmas).

Sure enough, it was VERY snug.

“You can’t have her wear that. She won’t be able to breathe.”

I looked high and low and luckily found a piece of left over neoprene  (from the old wet suit that I had used to make the vest).

I cut a 1 1/2 inch strip the length of Emma’s suit. It didn’t take long to cut the suit and sew in the strip. With a zigzag stitch and the piece butted up to the edges it was easy to insert a strip. No need to overlap neoprene to make a seam. Just laying the edges snugly side by side and zigzagging them together works fine.

You can see the post I did about the original vest a couple of years

ago. https://wordsfromanneli.com/2016/11/11/dog-vest/

Here she is in the original vest.

I was going to take a picture of Emma in her expanded vest to put at the end of this post, but I was shocked to learn that she came home without it.

It’s lost! Somewhere out there in the brambles it got hooked up, the velcro parted, and there the vest stayed.

In the next day or so we’ll have to launch a search party for it.