I love cheap dog clothes, especially when I find them for my little chihuahua. They’re cute, they’re snuggly, they’re cheap, and they tend to make everyone in sight love your little bundle of chihuahua joy, instantly!
But something I’ve learned you have to look out for when purchasing cheaper clothes for dogs is the itch factor. Sometimes you can go to buy a cheap shirt for your dog, perhaps a knit sweater of some kind that’s made of wool, and you’ll put it on your little dog and it will make her itch her like crazy. You’ll put it on your poor chihuahua and her back foot will arch up and start scratching behind the ears and along the side, and the head will be twisting and contorting so she can reach that spot! Darn it!–I…must.. just…reach…. that spot! 🙂
My joking asside, it can be a good idea to test out dog clothes for this first, before you buy them. The easiest way to do this of course to is to simply take your chihuahua with you to the pet store (or whatever breed you have) and try them before buying them. Most pet stores allow you to bring your dog in with you these days, so you can take advantage of that and bring your little chihuahua dog in with you, bring her to the isle of dog clothes, and then test out those you’re interested in. Pick the sweater or coat that you think you’d like to buy, and then test it out on her: put the clothes on her and let her wear it for a few minutes while you browse the rest of the small dog clothing, and see pay attention and observe your chihuahua to see if she’s itching at all as a result of the clothes.
Most of the time, itching never comes up and this isn’t a problem, in my experience. But I’ve just recently had an experience with my chihuahua where I bought her a cute new pink little dog parka. I put it on her and everyone was absolutely swooning over how cute it was, but then I noticed something I’ve never seen her do before in response to wearing her clothes: she started itching! It it wasn’t just like a little scratch either: I’m talking a full blown itch-o-mania! It was kind of crazy.
At the time, I was thinking my little chihuahua was having some kind of allergic reaction to the material this parka was made of, but it was weird because the parka didn’t appear to be made of anything special or different from the cheap clothes my chihuahua or any of my little dogs have worn in the past.
It was a truly bizarre moment!
So I took the clothes back to the store and returned them. And with my little dog with me, we went and tested out a few more affordable coats for little dogs. Lo and behold, after a few minutes of testing different ones, we came across yet another article of clothing that was itching her like crazy! It bore no resemblance to the pink parka I’d returned, but it was causing the same itch reaction with my poor chihuahua. Weird.
The only thing I can think of is that somewhere along the way, one of the employees accidentally dropped a few of these coats onto something like fiberglass insulation or something similarly irritating to the skin, and then those pieces of dog clothing somehow they made their way onto the store shelves. Now, I’m swinging at air here, but that’s about the only explanation that comes to mind for me. The two coats we tried out on my chihuahua dog were completely different in every sense: different material, different design, and from a different company.
Luckily, we found a few good inexpensive dog shirts for her to wear this spring, so we’re both very happy about that: her with the added cuteness she’ll be sporting, and me here with the camera ready! Oh god, something tells me I’m turning into one of those crazy dog persons. Anyway, keep this in weird thing in mind: if your chihuahua starts itching the bejesus out of herself after you put that new chihuahua clothing on her, you may be experiencing something similar to what we went through here with these itchy cheap dog clothes, and you may consider returning them to the store like we did to try out some different shirts and sweaters instead.
