On top of a love for all things handmade, Etsy Dallas loves pets! They are our best friends, the love of our lives, and for some Etsy Dallas members, they make the best models!
Meet Leia, a two year old yorkie, who is the most adorable little model for
DC Imaginations Chau Ly. Leia likes to spend her summers hanging with her favorite ducky toy and sleeping. While she is afraid of the vacuum, she likes to bully the other dog in the house, by stealing his food and chasing him in the yard!
Another dog model is Olive, part of a dog and cat trio at
Maria Day's house. Olive and her brother Sammy are both chocolate labs and have been on billboards with local radio personalities-in fact; Olive loves the camera and loves to be in photo shoots!
The two love to play with their feline friend, Wasabi who was rescued by Maria when only a few hours old. Sammy was also rescued by Maria, who found him walking the city streets (hooray for rescues). When these three aren't running around the house like crazy entertaining their parents, perhaps Maria should stop feeding them popcorn, which she says is like crack for them!
Dacia of
The Ruffly Owl has two talented pups, Emma and Hiro, both rat terriers. These two mischievous pups love treats and have been known to help themselves to stuff on the counter. They thought that they were teaming up to climb up to the high counter, but as it turns out, they are quite the high jumpers!
Another special talent? They roll over and play dead when you say "bang"! How cool are they?
A lot of our Etsy Dallas members have rescued their four legged friends. Stefanie, of
Tefi, is a lifelong animal advocate and has rescued many a furry friend. Most have gone on to find forever homes with others, but a few stole her heart. The first rescue that became a permanent family member was George, a little white kitty she smuggled into her UT Austin dorm in 1994.
Then, when Stephanie started volunteering at Operation Kindness, a no-kill animal shelter, she walked a little white fur ball named Oliver. When Oliver became ill, she took him home and nursed him back to health, and the rest is history.
Lastly, to round out her fur family, is a kitty, Zoe, that she saved in the "snowpocalypse" this past March. Zoe loves to play with Stephanie's son Ian, so even though she is allergic to cats, it's all worth it.
Operation Kindness is also where Etsy Dallas member Laura Childs, of
childsPLAYdesign, adopted her two rescue dogs, Jess-a hound dog, and Daisy an English pointer.
Jess, who is 12, loves to sleep the day away, while younger sister Daisy (11) scans the yard, patrolling for squirrels. She is actually so good at catching squirrels, that she proudly brings them back to Laura, who now has special "squirrel disposal" gloves (ick)!
Jess's favorite treat is ice cubes, which is perfect for beating the summer heat, but he will eat pretty much anything (including Daisy's squirrels), which is why Laura describes them as the fat one and the fast one!
Another rescued pup is Opie, a 10 year old lab rottie mix, who also likes to chase squirrels (although he finds opossums much easier to catch). He was found near downtown Dallas, tangled up in a fence when he was a puppy. Once he looked up with those big puppy eyes, Sabrina, of
The Pig and the Peacock, was in love (even though she is allergic to dogs).
Although he used to be afraid of the water, he finally found his water legs (the lab in him) and now it is impossible to get him out of the water, especially in the summertime. There was even a time that he swam so far into White Rock Lake, Sabrina was sure they would have to swim out to rescue him.
Another dog in the Pig and Peacock family is Jenny's dog Buddy, an English lab, who was best buds with Opie. The pair went on camping trips, hiking, and weekends to the lake house together with the family.
Etsy Dallas also has its fair share of feline fur babies. Cats, true to form, are quite opinionated, and these kitties are no different.
Twelve year old Sam, a Bengal cat, is very vocal. Anytime owner Patricia, of
Karmacrochet, says "No" to him, he is sure to tell her how he feels about that. He is also quite the cat "alarm", not only does he wake Patricia up when he hears the alarm clock, he has also alerted her when an electrical fire broke out in the middle of the night!
Another Etsy Dallas kitty is Zena, a Siamese mix. Also an alarm clock, she has decided that mom Bonnie, of
BonnyBeads, no longer needs her beauty sleep on the weekends, and nips at her until she wakes. Ouch!
Xena, true to her warrior princess namesake, puts up a good fight when it is time to go to the vet. It has take Bonnie over 30 minutes (and quite a few Band-Aids) to get Xena in her sherpa bag for the vet. So if anyone knows of any house call vets, send their names her way.
A view from our front window the day before the 
Outside Larry's house, where the show was. Luckily the snow melted a bit that day. You know Texas shuts down when it snows, so we're really excited that we were able to make it. 
We can't get enough teal, and neither can our 
