#dog damage

Habersham's is a felt and knit dog with a truly interesting backstory. His person wrote:

We met up a little over 6 years ago when we traveled to a little town in North Carolina to take a tour of a house we hoped to build in Ohio.  He (Habersham) was a memento of that trip and the house we fell in love with during it, and has had a spot in our living room ever since. 

Fast forward 6 years, and alas we are within weeks of moving into this very house.  The journey to get here has been long and arduous.  After so many delays we were finally able to start construction, only to have a builder steal money, followed by months of delays and hassles with a new builder.  What was intended to be a dream has been a veritable nightmare, and has taken its toll on us in more ways than I can count.

So, of course, we were excited to have Habersham come along with us to help bring some good energy and fond memories to the house.  Unfortunately our cleaning lady threw him in the basket of dog toys earlier today for some reason and before we discovered him the puppy had.  Alas, he is a little too much like me these days, tattered and a bit worse for the wear.

Here is the diagnosis photos they sent:

What you can't see, is in addition to the leg and muzzle wounds, Habersham also lost the tip of his tail. But otherwise, he really was in good shape, and still quite a dapper fellow.

The plan was just to treat his wounds, but in order to make the scars as inconspicuous as possible, we would take a small transplant of fabric from the back of his head to use to repair his muzzle, then repair the leg with new fabric as needed. No spa for Habersham, the puppy had not been particularly slobbery. :-)

Here he is, just before he went home. Wounds repaired, new nose, new tail tip, and looking dapper and dashing again, ready to grace his new home with luck, smiles, and hugs.

His family wrote:

He looks great!  Thank you for getting that done.  I love that his "patch" is on the back and hardly noticeable.

The other victim of my puppy’s rampage this morning. I found her missing arm after taking this photo, and thankfully the damage isn’t nearly as bad as Wonder Woman’s:

Soft Duck’s family had gone on vacation only to come home to discover that their dog had missed them so much, he’d taken to chewing on stuffed animals for comfort including Soft Duck, the daughter’s spirit animal.  Here is the diagnosis photo they sent:

As you can see, she still had her head, feet, and bottom, albeit with wounds, most of one wing, a bit of another, and some strips.  Her torso was basically gone.  The initial plan was no spa (due to time) and just to put her back together.  We were to preserve as much as possible of her original self, including her ribbon.  Scars were a given, but she did earn them.

First step when she arrived at the hospital was choosing transplant fabric:

As you can see, there were several options.  As her people thought about it, I worked on her foot holes:

They decided on the soft velvet, but also agreed that a spa was now in order.  It was a great decision, because the velvet was a near perfect match once she was clean.

Here are Soft Duck’s wings, the first part I worked on....

Of course she needed a heart with some of her surviving stuffing:

Then her first chubbiness and shaping photos were sent:

Now everything was still a bit rough, and with someone like duck, where there are only a few photos of her original self, this stage takes some adjusting.  I thought she was a bit chubby here, but didn’t know how chubby she was originally.  Her people agreed and we removed quite a bit of stuffing.  In these photos, we were trying to decide whether to take in her spine seam as well (they decided not to):

Next chubbiness photos... 

but something was still off... Oh!  the wings should attach differently!  A bit more adjusting, and she was ready to fly home!

Ready for more hugs, she flew back cross country.  Her people wrote: