June is not only Gus’ birth month, it is also Pride. And June 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of annual Pride traditions. Pride started as a riot against police brutality and oppression and was led by Black Trans Women and POC (Marsha P. Johnson, Stormé DeLarverie, Sylvia Rivera). In our country, Transgender people are facing an epidemic of violence. Nearly 3 out of 4 lethal anti-LGBT hate crimes are committed against Trans Women and Girls. In 2019 the Human Rights Campaign stated of Trans or Gender Non-Conforming people that were murdered, 91% of them are Black women. 81% under the age of 30. 83% of deaths occurring from 2013-2019 happened in states without gender identity inclusive hate crime protections. Black Trans Women have a life expectancy of 35-37 years and earn an average annual income of 10k.

Black. Trans. Lives. Matter.


So how can you help? Here are two organizations close to my heart…


Local Seattle Option: Donate to the Trans Women of Color Solidarity Network. TWOC Solidarity Network describes their work perfectly stating, “this fund is one element in confronting the systemic economic disempowerment and violence that Two-Spirit, Trans Women and Femmes of Color face in our region. We know that unrestricted financial resources can really make a difference.” By donating you’re helping the TWOC Solidarity Network continue to provide low/no barrier financial support to Trans Women of Color.


National Option: Donate to Trans Justice Funding Project. Trans Justice Funding Project is a community-led funding initiative that support grassroots, trans justice groups run by and for trans people. Over the last seven years, a panel of six trans justice activists reviewed 1,118 grant applications, have given away 903 grants through our community-led process. Every penny they raise goes to our grantees with no restrictions and no strings attached because they truly believe in trans leadership.


Until June 30th, if you DM me proof of a $10 or more donation to one of these two organizations and I’ll send you a coupon code to receive $10 off your order! 


LETS LEVERAGE OUR PRIVILEGE and keep doing the work.

Love you all,
Lauren

It had been a long time since either Justin or myself had an 9 week old puppy. In many ways it comes back to you fast. Like oh yeah I remember less sleep, potty training, chewing everything, insane levels of cuteness. Clover reminded me a lot of Sophie as a puppy. Seeing her be fearless and sassy and loving... made my heart soar. It was so pure. Clover just stomped around ready to take on the world and I loved her for it. It made me proud of her. Made me want to see every little girl and woman feel like that. I’m really glad I met Clover when I did. I didn’t know it, but I needed to see her be fearless and happy.

2020 has been... something. For all of us. I have found myself wanting to scream out at the universe “what are you trying to teach me?!” at least once a month. Today feels like the culmination of lessons. Almost like I can begin to see, juuust start to understand what I’m supposed to be learning. 

My grandma died. The last of my grandparents. When I found out this morning it was just this big heavy weight. I miss my dad. I want to be with him. I don’t like seeing his sad face through a screen when he’s on the other side of the country. I know grief, I’ve met and sat with her before. But this time she was telling me something different. Telling me that I’m lucky. Telling me that time is short. And steering me towards the good bright lights in my life. 

We had the floors in our kitchen and bathroom removed yesterday because we found asbestos. No problem, load up the dogs and take a social distancing trip to the coast. Had the best mini adventure with the dogs and Justin. Feel lucky to have a home to come back to. Got back to discover the pipe under our toilet had a 6 inch crack in it. No problem, order pizza for dinner and schedule the plumber for Wednesday (our wedding anniversary). Get out the camping toilet and pretend we are camping for the next two days.

I need this perspective because I feel like I’m dropping the ball with work. Missing details, constantly behind where I want to be. Like I’m not accomplishing any of the goals I set for my business. Like I’m failing Jack’s legacy. It’s hard to let go of what you had planned. But as I start to focus on what is possible. As I start to put my energy into what can be created, instead of what was lost. Things are shifting.

Even in grief, it is hard to wallow or feel bad for yourself when you’re around these dogs. I walked through a big pit of sadness for two weeks in April. But these fosters brought me out. It is so much easier to love them. It is so much easier to let the process of loving them lift you up. Make you a better person.

After saying that I feel a need to make sure, that in no way am I implying that people around animals aren't allowed to feel crappy. People are allowed to and need to wallow and hurt sometimes. I also think it is important to recognize that professionals who care for other people and animals experience compassion fatigue. Especially now, as we all are carrying more stress and uncertainty during this pandemic.

Kindness seems to be the key to all of this. An over used but powerful sentiment. Please be kind. Kind to yourself and kind to the world around you. We have to take care of ourselves so we can be kind. Kindness doesn’t mean letting people walk over your healthy boundaries. Kindness doesn’t mean putting yourself last. Kindness just means using compassion whenever you can. Kindness means using empathy to imagine where someone is coming from. Kindness is remembering you have no idea what someone is brining into a situation. Kindness is slowing down just a tiny bit in order to make considerate decisions. 

So I donno y’all. As I word vomit onto this page. I just keep seeing Clover. I see her stomping around the backyard. Fearless and confident. And I’m going to try and hold onto that. Try and hold onto the fact that - helping makes me happy. That fostering makes me grateful. That my rescue dogs always remind me of the good and light in my life. I’m going to do my very best to be kind and to bring kindness into these dogs lives. So that maybe one Clover at a time, another dog goes out into with world fearless and loving.


💕🐶💕
As a celebration of Sarge, our second foster and the one who made us fall in love with the fostering process : Order your Illustrated Pet GIF in the month of May and 100% of profits are going to Pacific Northwest Cattle Dog Rescue and The Underground Dog’s Project POOP! The two rescues that got our previous foster Sarge to us from TX 🐶✨My goal is to raise $450 by creating 15 wiggly pet portraits. We can do this!

Today is the finally day of Sarge Stories. So it felt right to talk about what happened after Sarge got adopted and we were back to being a family of four. Right out the gate, it felt important to have quality time with Gus and Sophie.

One of the "sacrifices" that Gus makes when we foster is that some of his toys get shared and destroyed. I do my best to keep the very most important ones up and away. But Mr. Avocado was not so lucky this go around.

Adorable Sarge ate Mr. Avocado and Gus was kinda bummed. Gus is a big fan of this toy so I ordered a replacement to give him as a celebration of Sarge getting adopted. Below is the de-stuffed and torn up OG Avocado. He might be salvageable with a wash and some new stuffing. 

Gus seemed confused when there were two avocados. Sophie was just super pumped to be included. 

When Gus got to play with his new avocado, all concern dissipated. His laser focus on the toy is adorable. I'm so glad he can have his avocado back. He seems to now love Avocado #2 just as much as its predecessor. 

We wanted to let the dogs know how much we appreciated them. So we got a delivery from The Seattle Barkery and Gus and Sophie were prettttty pumped. Sophie gets impatient when I want to record giving her treats. I love her little "boof" bark so much. 

Then it was our turn to have some comfort food. We looked at what we had available in the house and scrapped together the ingredients for rice crispy treats. Gus is an excellent helper in the kitchen. Very attentive. 

Some really amazing news came when we learned that the same day Sarge got adopted, so did another Pacific Northwest Cattle Dog Rescue alumni - Sugar! And Sugar hit the jack pot because her new family already had Joey.
​
I'm lucky to follow both Sugar and Joey on Instagram now. It feels so good to see updates on how awesome Sugar is doing with her new people. And if you need any evidence for why cattle dogs are amazing, please reference the photo of Joey below. 

Even more good news came when I learned that Carter had been adopted. Carter was the dog that Sarge was transported with to Washington. We got to meet the big handsome dude when we picked up Sarge. Here is a video Marie was kind enough to share with the foster volunteers. You can see Sarge, Carter, and Marie's amazing dog Percy on the day we picked up Sarge.

It has been such a source of joy to see rescue working its magic, especially during this pandemic. I'm so proud to foster for Pacific Northwest Cattle Dog Rescue. Below are (from left to right) Sarge, Carter, and Tim with their new forever families. 
​
Thats right! Our first foster Tim, who had been surrendered by his initial adopters, found his forever home. I got the news a few days after Sarge got adopted. And was over the moon.

With all these happy endings to fostering, it feels only right to share our new beginning. Here is a sneak peak at our third foster from Pacific Northwest Cattle Dog Rescue - Honey!

Honey is a two year old red heeler who had a litter of two boys and two girls. She is now spayed and coming to us from Texas in a few days and we couldn't be more excited.

Thank you Sarge for making me not only truly fall in love with fostering, but gain a deeper understanding and appreciation for everyone who makes rescue possible. 

REMINDER: Next week we will be updating the shop and announcing items where 100% of the profits (not just our normal 20%) will go to Pacific Northwest Cattle Dog Rescue and to Project POOP in honor of Sarge. I'm really pumped to share with you what I've been inspired to create. And with your help raise some money for the organizations that helped make Sarge's journey possible. Stay tuned!


<3
L

Although the meet and greet went great, it wasn’t a good match. No reflection on the person, just sometimes that is how it is. So we were surprised when we quickly had another meet and greet scheduled. This time everything had been streamlined. If things went well, Sarge could go home that day. Adapting the adoption process to insure everyone is safe. 

Shout out to Deana for being the most amazing adoption coordinator for Pacific Northwest Cattle Dog Rescue. She found Sarge’s family. Which is no small feat when you can no longer do in person home visits - you have to do them virtually. And do everything in your power to streamline the meet and greet and adoption process for the safety of everyone involved.​

I think she knew they were his people pretty quickly and shared the application with me. She told me about the phone interview she had with the family. And then all of a sudden I knew it too. The key bit of information was, this family had adopted a boarder collie mix when she was nine months old. The dog had extreme separation anxiety but they stuck with her and lived happily ever after for almost 15 years. And the details went on and on. I just sorta keep having this strong certain feeling that these were his people. 

So I did my best to have Sarge absolutely ready to go home with them when the day arrived. Sarge got his nails trimmed, a bath, and brush out. The bath part was pretty amazing. If you remember from Sarge Stories - Day 5, Sarge was NOT a fan of the self serve wash station when we picked him up from transport. So we made a lot of efforts to help fix that for him. We went really slow and gentle with him. No loud water noises, lots of teats, and I stood in the tub with him. ​

He did pretty amazing. Major major improvement. And he still talked to me afterward, so that was great news. In fact, he was pretty concerned when I got into the shower afterward. Kept looking at me while I was cleaning the tub - like “lady why are you still in there? Get out!”

These two boys never ceased to crack me up. I loved seeing them together.

Sarge kept a watchful eye on the treat bag and then got sleepy. The drive up to Bellingham about about an hour an a half so he took a solid little nap.

    ​When we picked up Sarge for fostering he had just arrived via transport in Washington. We were so lucky because just up the road there was a local pet store with a self wash station - they donated baths for fosters that just arrived. That was amazing news, Sarge was insanely cute but a little stinky. Fosters can arrive from transport in lots of different conditions, so having access to a self service dog wash right out the gate was awesome.
    When we walked into the store, we were greeted by super friendly staff and Sarge was so sweet. He wasn’t a huge fan of spraying water part of the bath process. But we had to keep in mind he just finished a huge journey from Texas to Washington and had two strangers trying to wash him. So we did a quick wash, gave him lots of treats, and hit the road. 

Sarge made the best faces while squishing himself as close to you as he could manage. Night or day this dude loved to cuddle. 

This video of hale bouncing off his head and him being like "ok cool, grab the stuff from the truck and lets go inside now please."

Gus and Sarge had to be near each other almost all the time. This was one of their favorite spots. Since we are sheltering in place, Justin works at a standing desk in the kitchen and I work on my computer in the bedroom. Here the boys could watch us both. 

Big spoon Sarge, little spoon Gus. 

Took this video right after we learned Sarge could jump the "extra tall" baby gates we have in our home. He could do it without touching them or knocking them over. When he jumped them or jumped up onto our bed it looked like he went straight up and over. Like the trajectory of his body made a right angle. It was cartoonish and adorable. 

When I'd let the dogs out sometimes I'd go check the laundry. We have this tiny old window that lets you see the whole back yard. Every time I looked out this old foggy laundry room window, he was pooping. And it was guaranteed to make me hysterically laugh. 

Loved his flirt pole time. Look at his amazing tail as he zooms. 

He took to photo shoots like a pro. And made you smile while doing it.

He also considered sitting for a treat so serious business. But after a few clicks of the camera was like "ok, it is treat time lady."

I found a cow paws video! See Sarge Stories Day 3 for an explanation of why cow paws were my absolute favorite. 

Taking back yard breaks while the sunshine was a out and the birds sang, was a magical. It was only made better by watching these two dudes live their best lives: just zooming and playing nonstop. Notice Sophie in the very back of the yard, not having any of it. 

Stay tuned for more Sarge Stories over the next three days! I’m excited to share more about him and our fostering journey as we get ready for our third foster to arrive. 
In tomorrow's post I'll share all the adventures that Sarge wore this bandana  during his time with us. 


<3
Lauren

    Pacific Northwest Cattle Dog Rescue is a small, volunteer based non-profit organization. They are a foster based rescue which means all of the dogs in their care live in foster homes where they are part of the family until they find forever homes. It also means that the more people foster, the more dogs can be pulled and transported out of shelters. 
    I’m falling hard for this rescue because of the dogs we’ve fostered, the volunteers that run it, and also because of Gus’ story. Gus was roughly one and a half when we adopted him. He had been returned or surrendered to various shelters three times before he made it to Seattle Humane and we found him. Australian Cattle Dogs are not for everyone. They take work but the reward is immense and quite frankly addicting. 

    If you haven’t already - check out these solid tips and tricks for capturing photos and video as a foster parent or even just for fun as a pet parent. My friend Marika of Dirtie Dog Photography is the co-founder of The Limelight Pet Project. The project shines a light on harder to adopt rescue animals and the people who help them in the greater Puget Sound region. Featuring video interviews and photographs of the animals in local news segments, Pet Connection Magazine, and through social media. 
    Since COVID-19 has changed everything, it is inspiring to see how this project has pivoted. They are now conducting all interviews virtually, and have created video tutorials to help empower foster parents and rescue workers to capture high quality photographic and video content of the pets in their care. Which means these pets can still get featured on Q13 Fox and JoeTV Seattle. In fact, check out this amazing Q13 feature of Tuffy the goat from Puget Sound Goat Rescue. 
    But back to Sarge. If you have been following along for the previous two days, you might have found yourself asking - if you love Sarge so much why didn’t you keep him? And that, my friend, is an excellent question. So first I’m going to walk you through all the reasons I kept thinking that maybe we should keep him. That maybe he was our dog.
    The first is cow paws. Sarge had cow paws. Now cow paws in a term in our household for when dogs have toe beans that are both pink and black. In other words, they have spots on their paw pads. Jack had cow paws. Really amazing big boy cow paws that used to flutter as he lay on his side dreaming that he was running very fast. In case you don’t know who Jack is, he was my heart dog. My best friend of 13 years who recently passed in September and is the inspiration behind us starting to foster. 

    Now that might sound like an insane reason. And I’m good with that. You see, I remember seeing the bottom of Sarge’s feet one day while he lay next to me and my heart just exploded. Man I missed having cow paws in the house. Sarge let me touch them and inspect the spots and I told him over and over how perfect he was. Again, I’m good with sounding like an insane person. 
    Next was that Sarge liked to swing one of his front feet around wildly to ask for attention. Many times literally punching me in the face. But we worked on that and transitioned to nudges as a more polite means of requesting pets. Jack used to do that. He was a big dog too. He was 95lbs in his prime and he would swing that leg around and wack you with one of his paws. Years and years later when we did a DNA test, turns out he was 50% boxer. Don’t know how we didn’t see that one coming. But the act of this paw punching it just seemed so wonderfully familiar.

    For me these reasons were things that I thought might be “signs” but there were also some pretty obvious reasons. For example Sarge was an intuitive, sweet, loving, smart, handsome-as-all-get-out dog. Who also seemed to really love us. Sarge also fit into our family so well it, it made fostering him so SO easy. Seeing him plop right into our routines and do amazing with our dogs, made me pause. I mean the amount of sweet nap moments and cuddles that happened was insane. I couldn't help but wonder if I was ignoring those "signs". I mean a pandemic broke out and we were both working from home. There really isn’t a better time to bring a new dog into your life when when you can be home to help them adjust and get to know each other.

    At some point during fostering Sarge, I learned that Tim, our first foster, had been returned. They had had Tim for less than a month and decided his separation anxiety was too much for them. It broke my heart. My mind worried that what happened to Gus was happening to Tim. It just seemed like a blow to my concept of our first foster being such a success. Should I hold onto Sarge so that that could never even be a possibility for him? It also made me think a lot about expectation setting for people when they adopt a new dog. It takes a dog months to become fully adjusted. But that is for another day. Luckily Tim had an amazing group of people who wouldn’t let what happened to Gus happen to him. So Tim went to be fostered by PNWCDR’s adoption coordinator Deana. And there he was loved while the search started again for his people. 
    I guess now is the part where I’m going to do my very best to explain, that in spite of everything I said above, I knew we couldn’t keep Sarge. You see, in my heart of hearts I knew that a dog this handsome and young and healthy and simply wonderful would find a home. And not just any home, but an amazing one. I kept having these little dream moments of what that home might look like for him. So for me, in this very particular situation, keeping him felt selfish. Keeping him meant that an amazing home wouldn’t get to love Sarge. Keeping him meant we wouldn’t be able to foster the next amazing dog. 
    But don’t mistake me, in no way is ‘foster failure’ ever selfish. I think in those situations there is no choice, they are just your dog and you know it. Or maybe you know their best shot at happiness is with you. Or maybe you’ve been fostering them for so long they are family so its just right to make it official. I had to be honest with myself, I felt confident Sarge had a really good shot at finding real happiness out there. Plus in this current pandemic, I also felt confident that there were a lot of people and families looking to adopt. 
    So we did everything in our power to help Sarge get ready for the moment we would find his people. And we enjoyed every moment. 
    

Stay tuned for more Sarge Stories over the next few days! I’m excited to share more about him and our fostering journey as we get ready for our third foster to arrive.


<3
Lauren

 This series is intended to tell stories about fostering and our second foster dog Sarge. Wanted to share these stories over the next few days as we prepare our home for our third foster dog! If you haven’t read Sarge Stories - Day One, feel free to catch up here.

    Fostering Tim came at the perfect time. He was our first foster from Pacific Northwest Cattle Dog Rescue (PNWCDR) and he arrived on January 14, 2020. The start of the year is quiet for most small businesses. The holiday insanity has come and gone. Customers are taking it easy on spending. Events and markets take a breather. Which meant I had more time on my hands to dedicate to this whole fostering adventure. 
    All that seemed to be working in our favor. I think both my spouse Justin and I were waiting to see if we could even pull this off when Tim arrived. We didn’t know whether we would succeed or maybe just “make it work” with Gus and his reactivity.
    In the end we did. We did pull it off and Tim went to his new family on February 17th. After fostering Tim went so well, we had to sit down and chat about if we wanted to do it again. It was a lot of work to ease Gus into life with Tim. And Tim needed love, attention, and training. He was just a young little dude, only about a year old.​

    I remember when Tim’s new family came to the house to pick him up, I was a so nervous. Would I cry in front of these people? Would Tim not want to go? Would Gus and Sophie be sad? All newbie foster parent worries. But Tim remembered his new family from his two meet and greets and was so excited to see them. This huge wave of relief just washed over me. Tim was happy. We had done it. Tim got his new beginning. We had achieved foster success.
    Turns out our dogs were fine too. Sophie and Gus weren’t sad. It was like their friend that had been sleeping over went home. And they were both like, cool what’s next? Classic me to worry and overthink. And I wasn’t sad. After I watched their car drive off down the road, I just felt… really really good. I felt like I had done the thing I had wanted to do. I had made my dream for Jack’s legacy come true.
    So what next? Back to normal? At best it was a new normal. Having only two dogs in the house felt weird. We had only lost Jack in September. Even after three months of just Sophie and Gus - two dogs felt odd. It had felt good to have three dogs again for the six weeks we fostered Tim. The boys played and played in the back yard. Cuddled on the couch. All under the watchful supervision of Sophie. The house was warm and full.

    Sarge settled in perfectly. A few days in I realized I never really dug deep into the information we had on him. Just skimmed a few pieces of info. Mostly looked at pictures and videos that showed how sweet he seemed and dove in. I just remember reading he was a stray that people had seen around town in Balmorrhea, TX. Something about how he hung out by the grocery store, being cute and trying to get food. So I went back and dug deeper. 
    There was a document the Alpine Humane Society had put together on Sarge for Pacific Northwest Cattle Dog Rescue. You can see a picture of it below. It almost looks like a little flyer for him. The sentence that stopped me in my tracks was “We don’t know much about his history, as Sarge was rescued from a highway pullout after his dog partner had been hit by a car.” I was reading this with my computer in my lap and Sarge napping on the couch next to me. I just started to cry. He woke up like “lady what’s wrong?” And I looked him straight in the eyes and asked “why didn’t you tell me?” He just walked from his spot on the couch into my lap (as I quickly removed the computer) sat down and kissed my face.
    This was the moment that solidified he was an old soul in my heart. He was far too young be that wise. It can be so easy to forget how far they have come by the time they get to you as a foster. As best I can tell Sarge had been picked up by animal control, brought to a local shelter, pulled from the shelter, placed in foster care in Texas for a month, then transported to Washington State. A lot of people had to give a crap to make that happen. A lot of people had to care whether Sarge made it.

    The annual report tells an incredible story and I highly recommend you read it. It is inspiring. Like make you jump up and down in your living room inspiring. Growing up in the south (SC & NC) and having half of my family be from El Paso, TX - I’m familiar with how the vast majority of our country simply doesn't have the rescue infrastructure built yet. So I have a soft spot for people who are trying to make that happen. And I’m a little biased because starting a project like this sounds like something my heart screams for me to do all the time.
    And to be quite honest - this annual report and this project underlines everything important about this story so far. That when people connect and collaborate and help each other real magic happens for these animals. 
    Heather coordinates transports for all the area shelters and in 2019 started The Underground Dog: Project POOP. POOP is an amazing acronym for Pups Out Of Presidio, because the project is focused on the Presidio Animal Shelter. She is doing an incredible job of partnering with her local animal control officer, working with other rescues like One Tail At a Time-PDX, creating access to veterinary care, building a foster network, working with local government to change policies.  And again, I’d like to emphasize, 2019 was her first year doing this project. And she did it with an annual budget of less than 15k. To put it plainly, Project POOP helped vaccinate, sterilize, foster, nurse back to health, transport and/or adopt 94 dogs and 10 cats from the Presidio Animal Shelter, and 7 more local dogs. When I read that statement it makes me feel powerful. Like change is possible. 

    You see Sarge’s journey cracked it all open for me. I felt like the rescue world just split open and unfolded before me. I saw it in a way I just had not before. I had touched pieces of the puzzle in the past. I helped transport dogs when I was in college. I’d pick up an hour or two of driving and we’d daisy chain these little babies to a foster home or a forever home. It was great. I’d volunteered with rescues at adoption events and with nonprofits building backyard fences. One time I held a puppy that was the last of his litter at an adoption event for hours. I had seen his mom and all his siblings get adopted. Then right as the event was ending helped him get adopted. Months later bumped into him and his new family at local dog event. All this to say, I had experienced bits of the magic. 
    This time it was different. I was only six weeks of Sarge’s story. But the amount of love I felt for him was on a new level. It made me feel this immense connection to everyone who had brought him to me. To everyone that made it possible for this dog to live and be happy - I felt deep gratitude. Falling in love with Sarge made me vividly see all the steps that could or could not have happened for him.
    Next week I’m going to be launching some new items in the shop - and 100% of the profits from those items (not just our normal 20%) are going to go straight to Pacific Northwest Cattle Dog Rescue and to Project POOP in honor of Sarge. I'm really pumped to share with you what I've been inspired to create. And with your help raise some money for the organizations that helped make Sarge's journey possible.


Stay tuned for more Sarge Stories over the next few days! I’m excited to share more about him and our fostering journey as we get ready for our third foster to arrive.


<3
Lauren

I wanted to share Sarge’s story because, he is our second foster. And I have this insanely strong feeling that in five years I’m going to look back and remember falling in love with him as a transitional point in my life.

Before Jack died I did my best to gingerly imagine life after him. I was dreading the idea of life without him. Many days the idea alone made me crumble into pile of goo. Anticipatory grief is real. But still, I felt this need to find something to hold onto to that was on the other side - to see what this terrible loss might make possible. For me, my heart kept screaming foster. So I held onto that. I held onto this picture of bringing dogs into our tiny home and being a safe and kind place for them to land before they went off to their new lives. I wanted it to be part of Jack's legacy. I wanted him to live on through us helping these foster dogs.

After Jack passed, we still had Sophie our 12 year old and Gus is our three year old. We rescued Gus from Seattle Humane on January 4th, 2018. About three weeks into having him he revealed to us that he was both people and dog reactive. We went through some deep and heavy training with him to address his reactivity (shout out to Ahimsa Dog Training!). Doing our best to learn as much about dog behavior as possible. I’m not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but wow that process taught us a lot. And brought us closer to Gus. So we had to do everything in our power to make sure we wouldn’t set Gus up for failure with a foster. 

To the best of our knowledge, Gus is an Australian Cattle Dog (ACD). Maybe one day we will do that DNA test like we did for Sophie and Jack. But we mostly assume he’s 100% ACD. Although he is dog reactive, he has dog friends like Arthur, Bailey, and Luna. We have been able to have those dog friends in our home and even dog sit them. So when I submitted our foster application to Pacific Northwest Cattle Dog Rescue, I made sure to highlight Gus and his reactivity. 

Well, I learned a new thing y'all! And I'm pretty excited about it. I sort of want to make everything an illustrated GIF now! That's why I've added them to the shop!

​Here are two of my favorite examples at the moment. The first is of our dog Gus. He makes insane eye contact with the camera when we have his ball right above the camera lens. So it only seemed right to capture his dedication in a little GIF. ​

This second GIF is of our foster dog Sarge. He got adopted this past Thursday and I miss his goofy presence very much. But I can't say enough about the amazing family that adopted him. He's gonna have the best life. It makes my heart happy thinking about how he was a stray in Texas and now has a loving family here in Washington. 

One thing that Sarge did that I loved was jump on the bed and plop himself in your lap and stare up at you. Many times he'd get comfy and fall asleep there. Then pop awake because he didn't want to miss anything fun that I or the other dogs might be doing. So here is a sweet little GIF of sleepy Sarge. 

I'd love to help make a GIF of a special moment or quirky characteristic of your pet. They make an awesome gift to send someone some joy they can share.

The final product is emailed to you or the gift recipient and includes...
- a .gif file perfect for website use or text messages
- a .mov file formatted for sharing as an IG Post
- a .mov file formatted for sharing as an IG Story

Instagram can't post .gif files at the moment, so I make you a roughly 15sec video loop of your GIF as the perfect work around. ;) The movie file for IG Stories is formatted to fill the whole screen for a nice clean look. An example of the Gus Illustrated GIF formatted for IG Stories is below. 

Since I am used to mailing all my portrait products with a thank you card, I wanted to do the same for this digital offering. So I made a digital thank you card that will be included in the final product email. It can also be used to include a gift note from you to the recipient. 

I'm really excited to see where these portraits go. But even more so, I'm excited that these GIFs can be little pockets of joy that we can share and send to one another. You can order your Illustrated Pet GIF here. 

Stay well out there!

<3
Lauren