Homemade Paracord Dog Collars

Update: I now sell collars on Etsy! A portion of profit is always donated to dog rescues in San Diego. www.etsy.com/shop/Paracordon

I've been getting tired of looking at the plain boring collars my dogs have and thought hey, why not make paracord collars? So I did.

First I looked around the internet at paracord dog collars to get an idea of different styles, what would work best, and what I wanted. I decided against making them adjustable but I may change that in the future. I used a wide solomon bar weave pattern and found an awesome tutorial on instructables.com. Going from step 1 to 2 took me about half an hour to figure out what was going on until I realized it was just a square knot and lines 5 and 2 never move at all. Under 5 and over 6, then 6 goes over through the hole. Then again under and over, over and under through the hole. Then do the same thing on the other side. Easy though I was very confused about it at first! Before doing a collar for real I made a practice one not worrying much about how tight it was. I wanted to get a feel for the weave pattern until I could do it comfortably and be able to spot when I'd messed up. I also needed to know how much cord it was going to take before I cut anything.

I got two 50 ft lengths of 550 paracord from supplycaptain.com ($3.75/ea for 50') and also got two metal clasps. I thought the clasps were wider but they still work fine. UPDATE: They are actually not very good clasps. With any pressure on the leash they pop open! I cut the plastic buckle out of their old collars and redid the paracord which took about 2 hours to undo the entire thing and redo it. Use good buckles! I got purple camo for Kaytu, and pink camo for Denali. We already had 100' of paracord at home that is OD green. I used the full 50 ft lines on either side of the OD green. After making the practice collar the outside strands (which was the camo) had over 30 ft left, meaning it took less than 20 ft. The inside is twice as long, and I didn't measure it as it would have been about 60 ft of extra. I spent about another hour taking it all apart and was then ready to do it for real.

For Kaytu's collar I cut her purple camo line in half so each line was 25' (since I knew it had to be at least 20') and had the OD green line in the middle. I used a cow hitch to loop them around the clasp, as shown in the tutorial Step 1. After weaving down a bit I pulled a couple lines through a D-ring and made the knots around it to secure it. The D-ring is needed to attach tags to. UPDATE: Use a solid D-ring that is welded shut and does not have a gap, these have a gap and ultimately opened enough that tags came off. Instead of redoing the collars I used metal keychain rings and they've been working well enough.

I had her old collar next to me to use as a general guide for how long to make it. I tested it around her neck before tying the ends around the other end of the clasp.

Finished! Finding a way to tuck the ends under was a pain but I'm really happy with how it turned out!

Someone doesn't like posing for the camera!

Next was Denali's. I switched the color pattern, so where Kaytu's is purple camo Nali's is OD green, and where Kaytu's is OD green Nali's is pink camo. I did this by putting the pink camo line in the middle (uncut since it takes twice as much in the middle!) and having ~25 ft strands of OD green on the outside.

Same as with Kaytu's I wove in the D-ring

I also thought I'd try making a slip lead for Denali since I had some scrap. I've been meaning to buy one for use at agility. I'm not sure how well I like it but I have class tomorrow so I'll test it out. I left the weave a little looser so it's more flexible. Nobody likes a stiff leash! The single strand is the loop for my hand. The end of the woven loop slides up and down the leash to tighten or loosen it. When I got to the end I simply tied to ends around the leash, loose enough that the leash can slide through.