Today was a day given over to errands, and the first errand of the day involved dog sitting for my mom’s dog, Toby, while she went to the doctor.

Toby is a Shih tzu whom my mother rescued from an almost certain death seven years ago this month, and if Toby could talk, he would tell you that my mother is the center of the universe.

So with the dog sitting duties foremost in my mind, I grabbed a cup of coffee, a bag of Red Heart Super Saver yarns, my crochet hook wallet, and headed out the door.

When I finally arrived at my mother’s, I was able to sit for a few moments and turn my attention to the business of designing a pet mat. I got out my 8.0 mm L hook and two strands of Red Heart Super Saver yarn and set to work making a variation of my Bauhaus block design.

Beginning with two strands of yarn I left a very long tail (approximately 36″), made a slip knot, and chained 7.

I then worked a sc into the back ridge of the second chain from the hook and in the back ridge of each remaining chain for a total of 6sc.

Once I got to the end, I chained one and turned the piece counter clockwise (to create a straighter edge). I continued until I had completed 6 rows of single crochet, and then fastened off, leaving a second tail of approximately 36″.

I then used the long tails to make slip stitches along the edges using a method I detail here.

By the time I had finished the day’s errands, I had also managed to finish nine of the Bow-wow Bauhaus blocks:

which (before joining) measure approximately 10 inches wide:

by 9 inches deep:

One of the things I like about using a block method of construction is that it is possible to make a variety of sizes of pet mat to better fit the needs of the pet, including using an 8 sc stitch x 8 sc row square as the basis of a pet mat for a larger animal, or a 4 sc stitch by 4 sc row square as the basis for a smaller dog or a cat.

Tomorrow is slated to be an almost errand free day, so I will probably focus my crochet efforts on larger, more difficult to transport projects, but the Bow-wow Bauhaus blocks look as though they will be a wonderful traveling project that I will be able to take pretty much anywhere.