The Ultimate Guide on How to measure your dog when you cant find a tape measure!!

Why oh why can you never find a tape measure when you really need one!! You are not the only one. Often while we are doing a TikTok 'Live' session and Claire and I are showing our doggy jumpers, coats, collars etc on the screen, many of our viewers run around looking for a tape measure to measure the neck of their dog for a collar, or the length of the back for clothing.

So with that being said, we have had a think of what you could use that is around your home that you could use to measure parts of your beloved doggy: 

OPTION 1: USE A CHARGER CABLE

I know this sounds crazy, we know! However, that being said, you are guaranteed to have a charging cable somewhere in your home, and a school ruler.

All you need to do is hold the cable between your finger and thumb and very carefully wrap the other side around the neck of your doggy around the broadest/thickest part of your doggy's neck. Making sure you have enough slack to place two or three fingers between the cable and your doggy's neck and mark the spot where the charger cable meets the cord in your fingers. Please do be careful to not pull the cord too tight while you are measuring!

Now lay the charger cable flat and use your plastic 12" ruler to get your required measurements. Do the very same to measure the back of your dog when looking for the right clothing size.

Alternatively, you can do the same with a piece of string, a ribbon, a piece of rope or even a shoelace and do the same as the charger cable above, and that is to put the item up against your plastic, solid ruler.

OPTION 2: YOUR HANDS

You could always use something you always have on you!! Assuming you are a fully-grown adult, your fingers and appendages have a fixed length, making them ideal for taking measurements - The only drawback is that you will have to know their lengths beforehand, which you can do with your 12" plastic ruler.

Your hands - There are a couple of ways to use your hands. One method is to measure from the line on your wrist to the tip of your middle finger - good for measuring long surfaces. For shorter distances, measure the length of your pinkie finger. It's a lot easier to use your pinkie finger for smaller distances.

OPTION 3: YOUR CREDIT / STORE CARD

You could use a credit or store card. At 8.5cm long on the longest edge, your plastic card can provide a quick and fairly accurate measurement on short notice.

OPTION 4: PRINT OUT A RULER

Why not print out a paper ruler? You can find some 12" ruler templates here, to use in those moments when you absolutely need to be as accurate as possible:

https://uk.onlinelabels.com/docs/rulers/a4-Printable-Ruler.pdf

These free, printable paper rulers offer easy and accurate measurements. Simply print one of our free PDF rulers and you have an instant measuring tool. Instructions are on the pdf when you open it.

These make a great emergency tool if you do not own a ruler but need to take a quick measurement. These offer an easy way to measure something without a tape measure.

We hope you found this blog really interesting and if you have any comments or any ideas yourself that we could 'add' to our blog, we would love to hear from you. 

We have had some fun creating this blog and hopefully this will help you out in an emergency when you need to take some measurements for your doggy - or anything else for that matter.

Thank you taking some of your time to read this, we do appreciate it very much.

Tim & Claire Downer x

Also Mylo our Yorkie, and Pepa our rescue dog x