Last month, I wrote a letter and sent two Heartbeat collars to Heather Armstrong of dooce.com, the hilarious and wildly successful blog that has been written about in Forbes Magazine, The New York Times, CNN, and tons of other places. Heather does speaking engagements all over the country, and she has written/edited two best-selling books, It Sucked and Then I Cried, and Things I Learned About My Dad In Therapy. You can read more about Heather and her story here.

Among other things, Heather posts a picture of her patient and adorable dog Chuck every single day (often with things balanced on his head and/or snout): The Daily Chuck, and has been doing so since the inception of dooce.com in 2001. Here are pictures of Chuck taken over the past two weeks. Notice anything familiar?

Heather, if you see this, THANK YOU! WE LOVE YOU! Chuck and Coco are very lucky dogs to be part of such a fun and loving family.

All handmade collars and leashes in The Big Hearts Fund store are 30% off with free shipping for Spring! We are featuring our new, Special Edition BLUE large collars and leashes as part of this sale.

Let us know if you like the alternative color, and what colors YOU might want to see in the future!

Look what I did this week:

There has been so much going on and so little blogged about, I would be ashamed of myself… except that instead of sitting behind a computer 24/7, I’ve been sewing (obviously). Every single one of these “heartbeat” collars and leashes are – and will continue to be – handmade by me. And generous kickstarter backers – if you chose them as a reward, yours are being shipped to you TOMORROW!

These collars and leashes will be for sale on our website in the next couple of days. Also, you will notice that our site will change at this point – my brilliant husband, Chris Drackett, is bringing our site up-to-speed. There will be several new things:

1. A store in which to buy these items, which will support our organization
2. A large educational section about the most common types of heart disease found in dogs and cats (research by yours truly)
3. An extensive section of resources designed to help owners of pets with heart disease give their pets the best care they possibly can

Stay tuned… !

Seems the cats were getting jealous of all the attention Lucy’s gotten lately. That could only mean one thing – time for some kitty designs!

I decided to use a snap for closure as an experiment. Since many cat collars utilize a “quick release” closure mechanism (incase Kitty gets stuck on something), I thought a regular old snap would do just about the same thing. Think of it as a safety feature!

I experimented with different textures by using the smooth cotton upholstry fabric in combination with the felt. As you can see, I think the “heartbeat” stitching may continue to show up in our work.

Oh, forgot to mention! This collar could also be used on small dogs, and the final would be made with several snaps for adjustability.

Let us know what you think!

Hallie clearly likes it:

:)

Felt is another material we’re interested in incorporating into pet products. We used it a bit on the bowl stand concept I posted yesterday, but here it is in a completely different context.

Felt is a beautiful material, no doubt. But it does not have a lot of tensile strength. We’re experimenting by combining it with nylon webbing to produce some original collar concepts. This one is Big Hearts Fund themed, with the white stitching reflecting the iconic EKG “heartbeat” rhythm.

Here is Lucy modeling. Isn’t she a pretty dog?

She got a treat for sitting so nicely for this shot.

And for you kitty lovers out there, I’ll add this – our little photo shoot was not without its fair share of curious intrusions.

Clearly, a fun time was had by all. Hold your breath for a kitty-cat centered update tomorrow!