Mod Dog, or Why Etsy Will be the End of my Bank Account.

So I recently discovered the joy of Etsy. Martha Stewart is my crafting guru, so I've known about it for a while. But a few weeks ago I actually went on there and started poking around.

Let me just say, it's like a WMD to my bank account.

Their daily e-mails are sooo incredibly aggravating,and not in the way you'd expect. Without fail, they come right into my mailbox with these fun little finds from different dealers. I can't tell you how many times already I've seen things that I didn't even know I needed. It's even worse when you find something you were actually looking for-- or when Daily Candy double-teams and gangs up on you, too. Ugghhh!

It's so bad, I've started playing a game with myself: I try to make it through a full e-mail without falling in love with anything. I always get so close, but it's always that last one or two items they show that really get me. I think I've gotten through three in the past month where I didn't have to clean a puddle of drool off my keyboard.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I discovered Mod Dog from a Twitter feed I follow. I clicked on the link, and that was the end of me.

Mod Dog makes wonderful little tags, jewelry, and stationery-- all dog-related. I fell in head over heels in love with the copper dog tags. I was looking for a tag for Alice's harness, and after seeing the skull and crossbones one, I knew it had to be that one.

There was one additional item they had on their site that I knew I needed: a little silver tag with a heart that says "Rescue". I thought it was so incredibly sweet, but then I read the description. Part of the proceeds go to animal rescue programs in Minnesota.

I have to say, right about then I noticed how dusty my house had gotten.

For nine years while I was growing up, my family lived in Minneapolis. When I was about twelve, my family adopted a kitten from a rescue. Before then, I never even knew that no-kill rescues existed-- I thought it was just high-kill shelters and pet stores. It was a pretty cool concept to me. We named the cat Daisey, and we had her for sixteen years.


She was one of those legendary great cats-- chubby, social, thought she was a human and would do things like sit at the dinner table with us. But Daisey was very much a cat, through and through: persnickety, occasionally aloof, and definitely better than us mere mortals.

Daisey passed away about six months before we got Alice, and I thought getting the Rescue tag for Alice was a nice way both to celebrate her as a shelter dog and to honor Daisey by supporting the great types of programs that brought her to us.

I ordered both tags, they came stupid fast, and they're so freaking adorable. The name tag is so cute, I actually put it on her collar instead of her harness. It's also oxidizing beautifully.


The rescue one did go on Alice's harness, and it makes the sweetest little tinkle sound when she walks around.


It makes me smile any time we go for a walk, so proud of my rescued pets, and so thankful for the wonderful people who work to find great animals like Daisey and Alice find homes.