A Memorial to Velvet
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Velet's Last Picture
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Where to begin? I've had a lot of dogs and trained and loved them all. I always thought I was a big dog person, having had three Labrador Retrievers. Well, I was wrong. Velvet at 14 pounds was the best.
I was a dog man. Ruth was a cat woman who thought that the proper place for dogs was in the barn and never inside. Ruth changed her mind when we met Velvet, Peter's dog.
Actually, Velvet was the payoff of our bribe for Peter to move to Ohio. Neither Peter nor we were happy with California schools. We knew Ruth's 3rd & 4th teacher [Mrs. Juliane Boehm] was good and we moved. Peter, however, did not want to move from his friends and California.
Peter had always wanted a dog to sleep on his bed and keep his toes warm. Thus, we schemed up a bribe -- when we got to Ohio, Peter would get to choose a dog!
We arrived in Bluffton on April 1, 2003 [no joke]. Shortly thereafter I took Peter to the Findlay Mall to look for a beagle. After a dachshund/Maltese mix attacked his shoelaces, the choice was made! Now we had to decide on a name for her "Lacey" because she liked to attack laces, or Velvet due to her smooth dachshund-like ears.
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Velvet's First Picture
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Ruth fell in love! Peter was ecstatic! I was happy [it was a dog, even if it was small enough to be a cat]. Everything was perfect except that Peter kicked around so much when he slept that Velvet could not keep his toes warm...but she found another bed with toes needing heating - Ruth's!
When we built Forever In Stitches we had scores of boxes delivered to our garage, and usually be Brad Fruchey of UPS. Velvet loved greeting Brad [and wetting his boots]. Velvet took great pleasure in supervising the build-out of the shop and when things weren't to her specifications, she'd require it to be fixed [like the time she tore out an entire store-width of carpeting]!
We trained her to approach children and sit down to be petter. We trained her not to bark [she couldn't help herself when other dogs used HER sidewalk]. She quickly learned to not step on a quilt, batting, or backing while walking all over my clothes was quite OK.
She greeted everyone at the door. Kids came so see Velvet. Every once in a while someone would appear at the door and ask if we had any velvet, because that was all that their child/grandchild could talk about. At Christmas kids brought Velvet cards.
We dedicated a page on our web-site to Velvet. It was called "The Real Owner". That will now have to change to "The Owner Emeritus".
We miss you, Velvet!
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"The Owner Emeritus" & "The Boss"
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