A tipi for the pups has actually been one of those things that’s been on my list for a long time. I don’t even remember what first sparked the idea (I know ones for kids have been poping up all over the internet for some time, so it may be from that), but I’ve been a little intimidated by the idea too. Turns out, it was way easy. Maybe a tad tricky to get just right, but pretty simple none the less. 

What you’ll need // 5 Wooden dowels (I got mine from Lowes, I’m not positive of the size I used – sorry! But I just kind of held up a bunch of different sizes to figure out how big I wanted my tipi), leather (or faux leather) cord, canvas (I got a whole yard and had more than enough). 

I started by drilling a hole through each dowel. You can skip this step if you don’t have a drill handy, you will just want to wrap your dowels nice and tight to compensate. Then I threaded my leather through the holes in each dowel. 

Next you’ll want to stand them up and arrange them at different angles to make the structure of the tipi. Make sure you leave a larger space between two of them for the front opening. Once you have them aranged how you like you can knot your leather to secure. At this point I also hot glued each of the dowels together as well to add a little extra support too. 

Take your leather and continue wrapping around the dowls. I also criss crossed through the dowels to make sure everyone stays in place. I love the look of it being really thick, but you can wrap to your own liking!

Getting the fabric to lay right is deffinitely the fussiest part. I just draped the whole yard over it to start (top left) until it layed how I liked, and then trimmed off the obvious extra (top right). Next I just went around and trimmed off the extra from pole to pole. I also hot glued the tops and bottoms of the canvas to the dowels so they would stay in place. It’s good to keep in mind that you can always trim off more, but you can’t add more, so take your time and trim just a little at a time until you’re completely happy! 

One of the fun parts of making a tipi is decorating it! I debated weather to paint the outside of mine, but decided for now to just go with a simple tree clipping, pinned to the top. 

This could also be easily done for a kid’s tipi as well, you’ll just want to make it bigger than I made mine. But really, your dog needs a tipi though, right?