Silly Dog Magnets Creates A Wheelie Dog Set After Frankie, the Walk ‘N Roll Dog

Posted by Barbara Techel


It is such an honor to be Frankie’s mom and do all I do to help spread Frankie’s message that all animals with disabilities are so special.  When I learned about Silly Dog Magnets through my favorite blog, Who’s Your Dachshund, I thought they were just so cute!  Brianna Lennox, the artist, has many varieties of breeds to choose from, so do check them out.

Of course, being a dachshund blog (who’s your dachshund), the feature for the day was, you guessed it, wiener dogs!  Hmmm, I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if Brianna could make wheelie dachshund magnets too?  So I emailed her.  I heard from her within the hour and she loved the idea!  She was so happy with the idea that she made the above magnets and named Frankie as her inspiration.  What a beautiful honor!

We will have them available on our website in the future, but if you can’t wait, please check them out at Silly Dog Magnets.  And tell Brianna Frankie sent you!

Understanding Death

Posted by Barbara Techel

I suppose that sounds like a heavy topic, huh?  At a recent therapy dog meeting which Frankie and I attend once a month at Sharon S Richardson Hospice Community a poem was shared with us on a way to understand dying.  I thought it was such a beautiful poem that I just had to share.

By Henry Van Dyke

I am standing upon the seashore.  A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.  She is an object of beauty and strength.  I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says:  "There, she is gone!"

"Gone where?"

Gone from my sight.  That is all.  She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her.  And just at the moment when someone at my side says, "There, she is gone!" there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout:  "Here she comes!"

And that is dying.

Honoring Our Pets that Have Passed On

Posted by Barbara Techel

Losing a pet can be a very difficult thing to go through.  The grief is real and painful, as I have talked about many times on different blog posts. Here is a wonderful idea I came across from an article from Guideposts about creating a shrine to keep the memory of your dear pet alive.  I realized that without realizing it I too had created a few different areas of shrines for my dear sweet, Cassie Jo, who will be gone 5 years this July.  I can’t believe she has been gone that long!  So I share the article from Guideposts with you, as well as pictures of the various areas of memory I have in my home of Cassie Jo.

This is a beautiful painting of Cassie Jo done by a painter my mom hired so she could gift this to me in memory of Cassie Jo.  It hangs in my living room.  When I need to feel Cassie Jo with me, I gaze at this picture and every time I do, I feel Cassie Jo with me.

This is an area I have in my family room with a picture that was professionally taken of Cassie Jo when she was about two years old, some chocolate lab statues and an angel holding a puppy.

This is a small table in MySpace.calm (a.k.a. writing studio) of some pictures of Cassie Jo, one with her leash draped across the top. The block that says Billie Jo was a sign from Cassie Jo when my writing studio was being built.  I have maple hardwood flooring in my room.  It is often stamped by the person who inspected it.  We had many nicknames for Cassie Jo, and one was Billie Jo (don’t ask me why, but we just did)… at any rate, we discovered Billy Jo stamped on one of the hardwood pieces.  If you have followed me for some time, you know that Cassie Jo is the reason I began writing… I couldn’t help but believe this was a sign from her that she approved of my new writing studio.

So it is never too late to create a shrine in honor and memory of pets that have passed on.  It is amazing how healing this is, as well as how it can help you in the future at those times you find yourself missing them.