Hestia’s homemade cooling vest 5


When we went on our walk last week, Hestia got overheated. She was panting hard and making some wheezing noises. So I decided it was time for a cooling vest.

All the commercially available cooling vests in Hestia’s size are the evaporative cooling vests– basically thick shirts that you soak in water. However I don’t enjoy a wet dog on my lap or in my arms!

I longed for a vest like the one Sabrina and Ollie had, and the ones that Brad and I use. We use cooling vests from Glacier Tek. These have cool packs that freeze at 62 degrees F. They stay at 62 degrees for 2.5 hours, and refreeze in about 15 min in ice water! That temperature is cool enough to keep you cooler, but not so cold that your blood vessels constrict (which can actually make you hotter overall!)

But the Glacier Tek cooling vests for dogs only go down to dogs of about 25 lbs or so. Obviously that doesn’t work for 9 lb Hestia!

I decided to make my own. I ordered a turquoise doggy t-shirt and sewed a pair of Brad’s old turquoise underwear inside as a pocket. That way you can slide a cooling pack right into the doggy t-shirt! Unfortunately because of Hestia’s size and the size of the cooling pack, I couldn’t fit the cool pack on her chest. Instead it drapes over her back and sides. But I think it will do the trick.

We went outside in front of our white azelea bush to take pictures of Hestia in the homemade cooling vest. The pictures show the vest with cooling pack outside of it, the process of putting it into the underwear, and it fully assembled on Hestia. I think I didn’t do too bad a job with the stitching if I do say so myself!

Brad was dressed quite fashionably, so we got some pictures of Brad with Hestia, too! We got pictures of her on his lap, and also on his footplate where she likes to get up and ride around!

Hestia is a small white and black dog with googley eyes and a smushed nose. Brad is a bearded man wearing a red dress shirt with black sleeves, a red and black and blue hat, a bowtie of the same colors, black pants, and silvery black shoes.


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