Congratulations to Colin!

Back in May this year, Colin, Lynne, Katy & I completed the 10K long Great Edinburgh Run in aid of Gracehounds, our local greyhound rehoming charity. Subsequently, Colin set his sights on another challenge & decided to run the 2009 New York City Marathon to raise further funds for the charity.

Roddy & Sophie ‘help’ Colin with his training

Since May, Colin has been hard in training (the rest of us took the more greyhound-like approach & relaxed on our sofas!) & on 1st November, joined by friends & family in New York, he completed all 26.2 miles of the marathon. He has raised a total of almost £3000 for Gracehounds!

17 down, 6 to go: Colin at 17 miles

Colin says,

“Well, I did it. It was not the fastest time – 4:24:41 putting me in 23,797th place but, with 43,741 starting and 43,475 finishing, it means that 19,944 runners crossed the finish line after me!

I’ve been amazed at the support I’ve had and the money you donated. It will be a great help to the dogs in the coming year.

All money donated will go to the charity to look after the dogs and none to the marathon or travel.  Thank you for your support.”

25 miles & still running

You can still sponsor Colin via his Just Giving page & see more photographs of the event here.

a proud moment

In other news, Gracehounds has recently found permanent homes for both Torres & Snowflake, & welcomes latest foster dog, Jackson.

Meet Tar

Tar is the beautiful dog that my partner & I are currently fostering for  Gracehounds, our local greyhound rehoming charity.

Tar

Tar’s racing days are far behind him, having been a pet for several years now. However, due to an unfortunate change in his previous owners’ circumstances Tar is now looking for a home again. But until that special someone comes along, he’s going to stay here with us.

He has the most adorable face, with a cute up-turned nose & long, velvety soft ears. Martin thinks this makes him look like a cross between a cayman & a rabbit, but I think he is cute as a button!

Tar is cute as a button!

At 7 1/2 years old, Tar’s  muzzle is starting to look distinguished, but he is a young dog at heart, with a playful streak & a super-waggy tail! He’s a very easy-going boy, & loves nothing more than a scratch behind the ear.

Tar acts younger than his years

He gets on with other dogs of  all shapes & sizes, is good with children & is even ‘cat-safe’! He’s settled very quickly into his foster home, where our own dogs, Max & Molly, have made him most welcome, even sharing the furniture with him!!

Molly & Tar share the sofa

You can find out more about Tar & Gracehounds’ other foster dogs here. I’ll be posting updates to let you know how Tar is getting on.

Looking for Forever Homes

Gracehounds is currently searching for permanent homes for 6 beautiful greyhounds: Torres, Poppy, Roddy, Marcus, Tar & Snowflake.

Torres

Torres (who my partner & I fostered for 6 months), is a 2 year old male ex-racer. During his time in foster care he has blossomed into a lovely natured, affectionate, handsome boy. He enjoys the company of other dogs & well-behaved children but is not suitable to live with cats.  Torres loves to play, & is also quite content to curl up in bed or stretch out on the sofa & just relax!

Torres loves his teddies!

Poppy

Poppy is a 2 1/2 year old female ex-racer. She is a beautiful girl, who is still quite shy. She’s just starting to come out of her shell & is curious about everything she has not seen before. A lovely sweet-natured dog, Poppy gets on well with the other dogs in her foster home, & is slowly being introduced to the world outside it.

Poppy is a very pretty wee dog

Roddy

Roddy is a 2 1/2 year old male ex-racer. He is a very handsome boy with a coat as soft as cotton-wool. Full of affection, Roddy loves to play, especially with his brother, Marcus. He also loves to snuggle in bed. He gets on well with most other dogs & may be suitable to live with older children.

Roddy relaxes

Marcus

Marcus is a 2 1/2 year old male ex-racer. Like his brother, Roddy, he has a beautiful white & black coat. Marcus is full of fun & adores playing with everybody & everything! His long tail is always wagging as he investigates the world around his foster home.

Marcus is very playful & curious

Tar

Tar is a 6 1/2 year old male ex-racer. He has a wonderful comical face with big ears & a wee bent nose. A very laid back dog, Tar is at ease with other dogs, cats & children. Until recently Tar was living with his friend, Snowflake, but due to a change in their owner’s circumstances is now looking for a new home.

Tar is a very easy going dog

Snowflake

Snowflake is a 6 year old female ex-racer. She is a gentle, sweet-natured dog with beautiful markings. Although she’s quiet, she likes to play & is happy around other dogs & children but not cats. Like her friend, Tar, a change in her owner’s circumstances means Snowflake is now looking for a new home.

Snowflake has a lovely white coat

All the dogs are currently in foster care, while they await the arrival of that special someone. You can find out more about the dogs, as well as the adoption process, on Gracehounds’ website: www.gracehounds.plus.com

brothers Roddy & Marcus groom each other; Snowflake & Tar relax in the sun

You can see more pictures of some of the foster dogs here.

Dogs, Dragons and Lagomorphs

The Dog House meets Dragon House (of Yuen)

A fortnight ago I purchased a birthday card for my Dad from Etsy shop Dragon House of Yuen. Usually I have to wait (impatiently!) for my Etsy purchases to arrive via the post, but this one arrived on my doorstep along with its creator! Meeting a fellow Etsy seller in person was a first for me, but it was so lovely to meet Annette & share a cup of tea & a chin-wag.

Annette & her lagomorphs

Annette lives in nearby Edinburgh with her fiance & 2 rescue rabbits, Arabella & Wesley. Her rabbits are the inspiration behind many of her creations, which include cards, watercolours, bags, soft sculptures & ACEOs. Everything is her own design & handmade with great love and attention to detail.

Arabella, Annette’s beautiful rescue doe – from Little Critterz Rescue Sanctuary in Perthshire, Scotland

Wesley, Annette’s very handsome rescue buck – from the Rabbit & Guinea Pig Welfare Rescue Centre in Rugby, England

An avid supporter of various charities including WSPA, the BUAV, Rabbit & Guinea Pig Welfare and the Buckeye House Rabbit Society, Annette donates a percentage of some of her sales to these charities, as well as donating some of her hand-crafted items to be raffled.

2 of Annette’s amazing handmade bags – the one on the left is modelled on Arabella & the one on the right on Wesley!

Some of Annette’s unique soft sculptures – baby hare, baby rabbit & baby feline

Annette paints beautiful watercolour pet portraits. She accepts commissions &, if your pet is a rescue animal,  will gladly donate 20% of the total cost of the painting to your animal rescue centre or charity.

A portrait Annette painted of her special rescue rabbit, Zai, who sadly is no longer with her

Annette is a fellow member of both the Etsy For Animals & McEtsy teams, which is how I came to ‘meet’ her online. Her sunny personality shines through in her active participation of these teams & she has a unique talent of pulling together the work of fellow artists to create beautiful treasuries, often with poignant messages relating to her love of nature & animals.

One of Annette’s many curations . This one’s entitled ‘Soul Shaker’ & is part of a trilogy of treasuries with fellow Etsyians Pey & Pat

So many grey hares

Like everything Annette sells, the custom birthday card I had ordered arrived beautifully packaged. Annette had also included a generous selection of samples of her other work, including a puffin image which I am particularly fond of!

The card featured decades of little grey hares, in fact one white cut-out baby hare with added fur detailing in pencil for every year of my Dad’s life (& that’s quite a lot of hares!). Annette had printed then cut-out each individual hare and adhered them onto the A6 card, which opened accordion-style.

The message, which is revealed line by line as you open the card, read:

“It’s that time again!!!

Happy Birthday

Uh – Oh!

So many

Grey Hares!!

Whew!!”

A creative & unique card, Annette can custom make this card for the ‘oldie’ (Sorry Dad!) in your life by tailoring the number of grey hares. I just love it, & so did my Dad!

Dining on kale

The kale which we sowed in our garden earlier this year – we now have a bumper crop & don’t know what to do with it all!

I sent Annette home with a bag full of kale from our garden, which she informs me is a favourite of Arabella & Wesleys’. Although Annette was very taken with both Max & Molly, we decided it was probably best if those two never got to meet her lagomorphs in person! Although, I hope that I may have the privilege of doing so some day soon…

Arabella & Wesley tuck into some kale

You can read Annette’s blog post about our meeting here.

Screen Printing Tutorial Part 3: Printing an Image

This is the third in a series of three screen printing tutorials, in which I will describe the process I use to create the hand printed items for sale in my Etsy shop, The Dog House. Over the course of the tutorials I will show you how to use a photograph to create a screen printed product, using the example below:

This specific tutorial will show you how to make a print of your image using the screen you created in the second part of this tutorial.

What you will need

• your printing screen
• screen printing ink in a colour of your choice (I use Speedball Fabric Screen Printing Ink, which is non-toxic & requires heat-setting.) *
• a piece of sponge (I use wedges of cosmetic sponge, which are cheap & durable.)
• old newspaper
• the product onto which you wish to print you image (in this case a women’s organic cotton T-shirt), pre-washed & dried
• cold running water
• an iron & board

* Use lighter coloured inks to print onto darker coloured fabrics & vice versa . (See part 2 of this tutorial (Painting the image onto the screen with glue) to decide what will work best with  your screen.)

Printing your image

Lay flat the material onto which you wish to print your image. If, as in this case, it is a double layered item (e.g. a T-shirt), make sure you place a good layer of newspaper between the 2 layers so that the ink does not seep through onto the back layer on printing. Then position your printing screen on top of the material so that the image lies where you want it (in this case, in the middle of the chest area). Dip your sponge into the screen printing ink so that one surface is lightly coated. Then, holding your screen firmly in place with one hand, dab the sponge repeatedly onto the screen with the other. This will push the ink through the tiny mesh holes & onto your fabric.

It is best only to apply a thin layer of ink, otherwise the resulting image may be rather ‘blobby’. Experience will tell you how much pressure you need to apply in order to create a clear, crisp image (I often make a test print on a scrap piece of material first). Once you have dabbed ink over all areas of the screen,  lift the screen off, being careful not to smudge the image by dragging it sideways across the fabric:

Adding finishing touches

At this stage you may choose to use further screens +/- inks to embellish your image. In this case I used a separate screen (but the same ink) to add some text to my image. You can also use further screens to print additional colours onto your image (it is best to let each colour dry thoroughly before applying the next, & to print lighter colours prior to printing darker ones), but I personally prefer to leave my images in monochrome.

Once you are happy with your printed image, carefully remove the newspaper from behind the fabric (it may have started to adhere to the fabric a little if you have taken a long time over your printing) & hang your item up to dry for an hour or two.

Cleaning your screen

Rinse the ink off your screen, sponge & hands using cold water. It is important not to use warm water, as this may cause the ink to set (thus clogging up your screen & preventing further use) & / or the glue on your screen to melt. Once you have cleaned your screen in this way, leave it to dry thoroughly then store carefully. It can then be used again & again to make further prints of your image.

Setting the ink

Once your print is completely dry, the ink must be heat-set in order to make your image permanent.  This can be done by simply ironing the material on which the image is printed on a medium-hot setting for 3-5 minutes on each side. Now your printed item will be resistant to machine washing at up to 40°C, dry cleaning & ironing on a cotton setting.

I’d like to thank Kristy of Strings to Things, for sharing her own Cheap Screen Printing Tutorial back in 2004, which introduced me to this method of printing & made it possible for me to not only set up my Etsy shop but bring you these tutorials today.

Just Jess

My friend & fellow Gracehounds volunteer, Alison, is adoptive Mum to four gorgeous black & white sighthounds.  My personal favourite is her beautiful black & white lurcher girl, Jess.

My partner, Martin, photographed Jess on a recent walk at Portmore Loch in the Scottish Borders. Her graceful stance & sleek silhouette against the wintery background of the loch along with the contrast between her black & white coat were visually striking.

Jess at Portmore Loch

I converted the above photograph of Jess to a monochrome image, then, using a technique similar to the one described in this tutorial, created reusable printing screens.  So far I have used these to hand print my ‘Just Jess’ design onto cotton bags, T-shirts, sweaters, & towels.

I created two screens: one for printing  the image in darker inks onto lighter coloured fabrics & a ‘negative’ screen for printing the image in lighter inks onto darker coloured fabrics. Here is a selection of the colour combinations I have tried:

Click here to see the products I have designed using this print, which are for sale in my Etsy shop. The original photograph of Jess is also available to purchase as a fine art black & white print in my partner’s shop.

Separation Anxiety: Making Progress

Like many dogs who perhaps haven’t had to the best start in life, our foster dog Torres came to us with anxiety issues, particulary Separation Anxiety. In conjunction with Gracehounds, the charity for which we are fostering Torres, we have used various methods to try & combat this & I am happy to say that Torres is now a much less anxious dog than he was.

If only a hug could fix it all…

1 month agao, Torres was assessed by  local dog psychologist, Maxwell Muir of Action 4 Dogs,& my partner & I, with support from Gracehounds, subsequently implemented a tailored behavioural training program over a number of weeks. Following his assessment, Maxwell’s recommendations for Torres were:

• Keep a diary recording all Torres’ ‘bad’ behaviour (e.g. whining, barking, chewing, soiling) including when, where & any obvious triggers.
• Very gradually increase the time Torres is left alone (at first just in one room of the house), starting with seconds & using ’stay’ command.
• Use assertive body language, hand gestures & a low calm voice to deal with Torres’ excited behaviour (e.g. jumping up, nipping, barking, whining).
• Try a long lead on walks to encourage sniffing & toileting.
• Do not leave Torres alone (even in the company of other dogs) at all, unless part of the above gradual increase.
• Check food for any E numbers & try to eliminate from diet.
• Upon adoption, transfer to his home will have to be very gradual (e.g. over several weeks) & there is a chance that progress made with his separation anxiety will slip at this time, with the new owner(s) having to continue the process. (He must go to a home where he will not regularly be left alone.)

4 weeks later, Torres seems generally more relaxed for more of the time. He pants less (excluding times when it is due to heat, of course!) & spends less time pacing the way he did before. He is far more likely to go & find a quiet spot in another room to us or a corner of the garden where we are not directly within sight, & he seems to seek this out without any (conscious) intervention on our part. He also settles much more quickly upon transferring him between my own care & that of Gracehounds or my partner, which has had to happen more frequently in order to ensure that he is not left without human company for prolonged periods.

Torres looking handsome

While I have to admit we haven’t stuck rigidly to the incremental increases suggested, we have gradually increased the duration of time which Torres is left in the company of my own dogs over the past 4 weeks & he seems to have tolerated this well. The ultimate test was when I left him at home with Max & Molly for a period of 2.5 hours  – we set up a video camera to record the dogs’ activity for the entire duration we were absent. I am very happy to say that, with the exception of a 5 minute lapse in the middle of the tape where Torres & the other 2 decided to ‘play’ with a box of tea-bags (click here to see the hilarious footage of this incident!), Torres spent the whole time resting peacefully (apparently asleep) on the sofa.

Torres’ behaviour towards other dogs has improved as well – he seems to wind up my own 2 dogs less so than previously (I think because he is calmer & less attention-seeking) & has interacted positively with several other greyhounds / lurchers who he has been introduced to via Gracehounds. In addition, I have been walking him with some medium sized non-sighthounds (e.g. labradors) on a regular basis as part of my dog walking business venture &, to my surprise, he has actually been a calming influence on them(!) & not reacted negatively in any way. He is generally less boisterous with other dogs than he has been in the past.

Although still on a mix on kibble, meat & cereal, we are trying Torres on a lower protein kibble. While I’m unsure if this has had any direct effects on his behaviour, it certainly doesn’t seem to have made anything worse & he appears to like it just as well as his old food. He will now toilet on (familiar) walks, which he would never do before (preferring to save it all up for our garden!). We have also tried using a (slightly) long lead with him, as well as ‘coupling’ him with our other male dog, Max, & both these seem to have encouraged him to take time to sniff & toilet whilst on walks.

In addition to the dog behaviourist’s assessment & recommendations, Torres has been seen on several occasions now by local complementary therapist, Margaret Campbell. Although the technique that she uses is not one with which I was previously familiar (or had any faith would work), Torres has definitely responded positively to the Bi-Aura therapy that she has been doing with him: he becomes calm & relaxed during the treatment & this calmness seems to last for several hours afterwards as well. It remains to be seen whether this therapy will have a lasting beneficial effect on Torres’ anxiety.

An altogether more relaxed Torres plays in the garden

Torres has really come on leaps & bounds, &, after an initial period when I was filled with fear & worry that he would never be re-homeable, I am now much more confident that, when the right person / people come along, he will make a fine pet. I am also amazed by how much has changed in just a few weeks with, what seems like, relatively little work on our part. We have by no means conquered all Torres‘ Separation Anxiety, but we have certainly made a lot of progress.

You can read an article which Maxwell Muir has written about Stress in Dogs here & find out more about Gracehounds‘ dogs available for rehoming here.