A sad dog gets his smile back
Toby's person wrote earlier this year:
hello, inquiring about a stuffed animal repair. it is severely damaged. i have yet to see any pictures on any repair websites that show before and after pictures to the extent my stuffed animal is but i am desperate for a repair. this is toby, my stuffed dog that was my moms and then became mine. he's survived many puppies and a child with pulling ocd (me). he is in three pieces, head body and tail, he's missing eyes and ears and nose. i'm not looking for a full reconstruction but at least to have the parts that are off put back on, holes sewn up and new stuffing. thank you for your time,
a sad sad stuffy owner
and here was the sad puppy's photo:
Now, clearly Toby's person hadn't seen this blog :-) because this type of treatment is actually fairly common. Plus, Toby is a beagle, and I'm a beagle person, so of course I was going to make him better! Though it wouldn't have matter if he was an alien, or an ocelot, or a quoll, I would still have helped. :-)
The plan was to clean Toby up, then put him back together. He'd need new eyes, ears, nose, his little tongue restored and his tail reattached, in addition to internal organ transplant (stuffing) and other various wound repairs. He'd be in the hospital for 6-7 weeks, but then he'd be whole and healthy and ready for more hugs and adventures.
He flew in and started with his spa:
Once he was clean and dry, I started putting him back together. His person had one photo of him when he was younger, which did help a bit:
There were constant emails back and forth. Is this the right nose? How's this for ear material? Do the eyes look the right size? But after several surgeries and adjustments, soon Toby was feeling like his old happy self again. Here he is all better and ready to howl with the rest of the hounds.
He flew home to Florida and his person wrote:
i really don't have the words to explain the huge amount of relief and happiness this whole experience has given me. i can say it helped heal a part of my childhood that i didn't think could be salvaged and im beyond happy i was able to entrust my lifelong friend to bet; this experience was nothing short of magical. thank you so much from me and toby. i can tell you truly care about your craft and i hope you can bring this amount of joy to best friends for so many years to come.
Enjoy each other's company for many more happy years... and Toby, my beagle says Arrrrooooo!
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