In July 2020, I lost my beloved dog, Shampoo. In the deep grief, I was looking for a stuffed dog on the Internet that looks like Shampoo, a chocolate and tan miniature dachshund.
Then, I found a needle felted dog that looked like Shampoo at Mercari. The seller’s name was Babymilk, and she was selling many needle felted miniature dachshunds in various poses. There was one that looked just like Shampoo in her past works, and I got amazed. So, I decided to order one.

Babymilk is a really nice person, and she kindly responds to requests, but she usually doesn’t accept custom-made works. If there is a special reason, she can make a customized one by paying her an additional fee. So, I sent her some pictures of Shampoo and ordered a custom-made needle felted dog. She caught the character of Shampoo well, and it really looked like Shampoo. When I saw her work that came to my house, I felt like I wanted to see another pose and ordered one more. And when that one arrived, I felt like I wanted to have more. After all, I ended up ordering five needle-felted dogs of Shampoo in different poses.

Pictures can catch the appearance and the memories with the dearest dog at the time and keep those forever. On the other hand, the needle felted dogs are three-dimensional, and they show a lively figure of the dogs. Now, I can see their sweet and favorite poses and faces every day, and I’m very happy and satisfied with these works.

For a long time, I was living with my miniature dachshunds.
But in these four years, I have lost three old miniature dachshunds one by one. Rinse, the one I had since she was a baby, passed away in 2017 at 15 years old and 5 months. Soon after Rinse’s death, I adopted Ai-chan, 12 years old at the time, but she died 2 years later at the age of 14, on the Star Festival Day, July 7, 2019. Shampoo came to my house in 2012 as an adopted dog, and we spent the time together for 8 years. She passed away on July 26 this year (2020). Five months have passed since Shampoo’s death, but I still don’t feel like accepting her death.

Ordering these needle felted dogs was a good first step of grief work to make the memories together in shape for me. I also ordered needle felted dogs of the other two dogs, and my room became delightful.