Mary Beale School of Needlework
Lesson 6
(The needlework chart for this lesson corresponds with Lesson 11 of the School)
Our Best Friends
My husband and I have had two dogs. Our Golden Retriever, Tommy, and now our Lab /Great Pyrenes, Lucy. Both dogs have been amazing! While our dogs have been different in sex and temperament, I think all dogs have certain things in common. If you make them sit before you feed them, they look lovingly into your eyes as if saying, “I love you more than anything on earth.” Then when you try to get them to do something you need (and you don’t have a treat in your hand), they look at you and seem to say, “I think I need to chase this squirrel” or, “I think I’d rather just sit here and sun myself.”
Our “four- footed” best friends communicate with us! The more we get to know them the more they understand us and the more we understand them. It’s special. They are family!
I have never had a cat, but I know that cat people feel the same way. Their cats communicate with them. The difference is that cats live a very long time so I would think that you could become even more attached.
I decided to make our dog and cats “talk” in this lesson. Our Lucy communicates very decisively when she wants something. She will look at me intently in the evening when I am sitting on the sofa as if to say, “this is my sofa, could you please move to your chair?”
I thought with this lesson it would be fun to make homemade treats for our pets. There are numerous websites online that offer wonderful recipes, most are extremely simple. It is important to know what dogs and cats can and cannot eat, but I think homemade treats are the best. These drawings I created could also be labels for treat jars!
While these are more cartoon-like, it is very interesting to note that this type of art is very old! I have numerous old British cartoons framed in my house. I love them!