Who me?

 This was my view this morning.

It seems as though he REALLY enjoyed that garden vegetable puree.

Unfortunately for me that wasn't the only mess I was privileged to deal with this morning.    Nope.  I was also presented with the gift of dachshund pee on my kitchen floor.

Yes...you.

Now, we love Chandler very very much.  But I don't love mopping the kitchen floor two or three times a day.   Owners of dachshunds understand my pain.  They are notoriously hard to housebreak.   Add that to the fact that Chandler was adopted by us at age 2 and his previous owners never completely trained him to go outside and we find ourselves with a near impossible challenge. 

I even called in a professional, a friend of my who trains dogs for a living. She almost laughed.  She agreed to come out and give it a try though, bless her.  But alas, she gave up.   Wished me the best of luck even though the odds were against us.

Well, this morning I vowed to fight back.  I may have lost many battles but I refuse to lose the war.

So, I attempted to make a belly band.  If I couldn't get him to stop peeing in the house, I was going to at least stop it from hitting the floor.

I dug out the cute cotton flannel fabric I bought a few days ago.  See previous post here.  I measured around Chandler's "waist" and used that measurement to determine my length.  Then I cut two sections that were 9in wide and long enough to fit around his...nether regions.

I pinned the two sections right sides together.  And proceeded to sew a 1/4in seam around, leaving a 1" opening on the side to pull through.  I sewed the hole shut then I cut two lengths of velcro about 1 1/2 in.  I sewed one length of velcro to one side of the bellyband and flipped it over and sewed the other length to the opposite side.

Viola'!

It was too small.  Silly me, didn't take into account the 1/4" seam.   Chock it up to a craft fail.  I'll be revisting this though and lengthening it but for now, it was back to the ol' drawing board. 

I cut two lengths of a different flannel fabric this time (accounting for the1/4" seam)

Pinned right sides together.  Proceeded to sew along to Freebird playing on the radio. 

And....SUCCESS!

And all it cost Chandler was some of his doggy dignity.