Unwrapping Dog Portraits For Duke & Georgia
Guest post by Jennifer Waters, Happy Dog Mom
I recently received my fourth custom pet etching from Greyboy Pet Prints (to go along with my four dogs). One of the things I’ve come to savor is the unwrapping of the artwork! The etchings come beautifully packaged in a way that has become very rare in the Amazon.com era. So when my package arrived I took a few moments to open it in the spirit of what it is: a beautifully crafted gift to myself.
Unwrapping Dog Portraits
What better gift could a dog mom receive than these gorgeous black and white pet etchings of her babies?
As a pet photographer, I naturally have a lot of photos of my four senior Boxers: Duke (15), Tyler (13), Georgia (11) and Lily (10). But taking some of my photos and having Mandi turn them into etchings is a nice way to elevate a photo into a handcrafted piece of art.
It also adds a bit more story to the image. When I see her etchings, I know that they started as a craft handed down a generation to Mandi from her grandma. (And I adore the videos where she and Mandi work on the etchings together. Check one out if you haven’t seen them!)
I also love that I can be part of the whole process. We worked together to choose the images, and then I watched my etchings being made live on Facebook and Instagram! It’s not very often that you get a front-row seat as your custom artwork is being made.
Dog Portrait Including Duke
The images I chose this time were for Duke, who was adopted a little over a year ago. At 14 years old, nearly blind and with a cancerous tumor, Duke was abandoned by his family and left to wander the streets. He was picked up and brought to the shelter, but his family wouldn’t come get him. I already had three older Boxers, so I knew I could care for this sweet boy.
No one thought he had much longer to live, so I was prepared to give him his best last days. That was a year and a half–and a whole lot of love and care–ago. Look at his face now and I think you can see that he plans on sticking around for as long as he possibly can!
Duke fit into our pack perfectly after the other dogs learned to give him grace for his blindness. (Duke’s eyes were eventually removed when he went completely blind and were causing him pain.)
One of our dogs, Georgia, went even further than that. She became his seeing eye dog! She has patiently helped him find his way on dog walks and up and down the stairs, and she keeps him almost constant company.
It’s rare to take a photo of either one of them alone, and this photo was no exception. She’s the sweetheart seated next to him in the photo above. I was trying to take a photo of just Duke (to celebrate his one-year adoptiversary), but she wouldn’t have it. She sat next to him and wouldn’t budge!
Between the happiness on Duke’s face and Georgia’s joy at being part of the picture, this image makes me smile every time I see it. Turning it into an etching makes it even more special to me.
Then I was lucky enough to grab a special Mandi was offering exclusively to her email subscribers, so I was grateful to receive the second image of my whole crew!
It’s not easy to get all four dogs (one blind) to pose together, so this photo means a lot to me. I also know that my dogs are very old, and this is a fleeting moment in time where I will have all four of them together. I never want to lose the memory of these days, and I will always have this beautiful etching on my walls to remind me. That’s a gift any dog mom would be happy to receive.
Jennifer Waters is a writer, photographer and dog mom at Happy Dog Mom in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She studies the science and soul of how to create happier, healthier, longer lives for our dogs–and for ourselves.
IG and FB: @thehappydogmom
Jennifer Waters
Happy Dog Mom | create a happier, healthier life for you and your dog
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