Posh new dog collar, leash and more on the way —just for moi!

"You may have extra hardware," warns a slip of paper on those put-it-together yourself sorts of things. Well, I do. Lots and lots of extra collars, leashes, harnesses that either are worn out, don't fit well, or Tucker-escapable. That's not including the so-called chew-proof stuff that I chewed through long ago.

Is this guy sneering at my hardware?  His isn't so great, either.

So Mom sent an SOS to Bob over at Handcrafted Dog Collars in good ole North Carolina, not far from my birthplace in the sunny South (Carolina, that is). Bob is plain old fun to talk to and got some laughs out of my doggone behavior. He even spent two days trying to think up a new design that would suit a stubborn hound like moi, before he realized it was an impossible task. Nothing, and I mean nothing, has been designed, built, thought up, dreamed, nightmared, that would in any way blunt my signature quality.

If I'm going to be stubborn, Mom figured, I might as well do it in style. And if you looked at my photo a couple of posts ago, I am over-hardwared. Prong collar, recommended by Elaine Stern, partly because a leash on a regular collar slips right off my slender little head, handsome though it is. Radio collar, also recommended by Elaine, for my famous stubbornness. Then, the collar that holds my tags. Too much stuff.

Bob is going to make something that goes just perfectly with my awesome coloring—dark saddle tan with black accents. Quite the step up from my mismatched gear. He makes everything himself in Wilmington and recently was putting together something fancy out of alligator leather for some lucky pup. He can do stingray, ostrich, shark, but I'm fond of beef, so I'm good with the cowhide. Thanks to Bob, not only will I be safe and comfy, I'll be stylin'.