How to Measure Your Dog or Cat for Clothes

Almost every fit problem with pet clothes comes down to one thing. Someone guessed a size instead of measuring. A soft tape measure and two minutes will save you the disappointment of a coat that pinches at the shoulders or a harness your cat can reverse straight out of.

Here is how to do it properly.

What you need

A soft fabric tape measure, the kind used for sewing. If you do not have one, use a piece of string and lay it flat against a ruler afterwards. A rigid metal tape measure will not follow the curve of your pet's body and will read short.

Measure your pet standing up, on all four feet, and relaxed. Measuring a pet who is sitting, lying down, or wriggling will give you a number you cannot trust.

The three measurements that matter

1. Chest girth

This is the most important measurement, and for harnesses it is usually the only one that decides your size. Wrap the tape around the widest part of the chest, just behind the front legs, and bring it back to where you started. Keep the tape snug against the fur but not tight enough to compress it.

You should be able to slide two fingers flat underneath the tape. That gap is your breathing room.

2. Neck girth

Measure around the base of the neck, where a collar would naturally sit, not up under the jaw. This matters for harnesses, hoodies, and anything that pulls on over the head.

3. Back length

From the base of the neck, where the shoulders begin, straight down the spine to the base of the tail. Stop at the tail, not past it. This decides whether a coat or sweater actually covers your pet or leaves a cold gap at the back.

How to read a size chart

Every size chart we publish comes from the supplier who makes that specific product, so the numbers are not interchangeable between items. A medium in one coat is not a medium in another. Always check the chart on the product page you are actually buying from.

Here is a real example, the chart for our Adventure Buddy Cotton Pet Harness:

Size	Chest girth	Suggested weight
S	9.1 to 11.8 in / 23 to 30 cm	4 to 6 lb
M	11.0 to 15.0 in / 28 to 38 cm	6 to 10 lb
L	14.2 to 18.1 in / 36 to 46 cm	10 to 15 lb

Notice that the weight column is a suggestion, not the rule. Two dogs at the same weight can have very different chests. Chest girth governs the fit. Use weight only as a sanity check on the size the tape measure already told you.

When your pet falls between two sizes

Go up. A slightly roomy coat is comfortable. A slightly tight one restricts the shoulders and your pet will refuse to wear it, which helps nobody.

The exception is a harness with adjustable straps. On something like our Trail Ready Harness and Leash Set, the chest and neck figures are adjustment ranges rather than fixed sizes, so the straps fit anywhere inside those numbers. There, you want the size your measurement falls inside, comfortably away from either end of the range.

A note on measurement tolerance

Pet clothing is measured by hand at the factory, so allow a difference of roughly 1 to 3 cm against any published chart. This is normal across the whole category and it is another reason to size up rather than down when you are on a boundary.

Sizing very small pets

Chihuahuas, toy breeds, kittens, and puppies often sit below the smallest size in a general chart. If your pet measures under roughly 23 cm at the chest, look specifically for XS and XXS options rather than assuming a small will shrink to fit. Cats in particular are longer and narrower than a dog of the same chest measurement, so back length is worth checking twice.

Quick checklist

• Measure standing, relaxed, with a soft tape
• Two fingers should slide flat under the tape
• Chest girth decides the size, weight is only a cross check
• Check the chart on that exact product, not a general one
• Between two sizes, go up
• Allow 1 to 3 cm of hand measurement tolerance

Every product we sell lists its own supplier size chart on the product page. If a measurement is missing or you are not sure which way to go, email us at contact@adoripets.com with your pet's numbers and we will tell you honestly which size to pick, or tell you if nothing we have will fit.