Thanks so much to Kathy Norcross Watts and Walt Unks for the great story in today’s Relish section of the Winston Salem Journal.
http://www2.relishnow.com/entertainment/2012/aug/30/wsrel04-a-love-of-pets-is-revealed-in-portraits-ar-2559224/
We were so pleased with the story on WFMY News 2’s Made in the Triad segment. You can watch it at this link online or it will be rebroadcast on Aug 24 at 7:30pm on Time Warner channel 9 in Winston Salem, NC.
http://www.digtriad.com/madeinthetriad/article/235139/255/Made-In-The-Triad-The-Jimmydog-Design-Group
It’s been a very hot summer in NC and we’re longing for the chilly days of the holidays! We’re giving you a cool gift to celebrate Christmas in July and help you with your winter holiday shopping. A $50.00 American Express gift card will be given to the next 2 orders we receive that ask for the AmEx gift card special. The real holidays are less than 6 months away and to ensure holiday delivery portraits need to be ordered by September. A custom pet portrait is the perfect thing for all those special people on your list.
Todd has been very busy this spring/summer and has many new portraits to share. We’ve updated our website with lots of new images and started a new blog all about our namesake, the one and only Jimmy dog. Please visit www.jimmydog.com to see all the great new work, learn all about Jimmy and see how easy it is to commission a portrait for yourself or a gift. Gift certificates are available and we can do it all over the phone.
For those in the NC Triad, make sure to watch Todd on Tuesday, July 31 WFMY News at 6:00pm. He’s going to be featured on their popular “Made in the Triad” segment.
Wishing you the happiest of holidays!
To immortalize your holiday pack, please visit www.jimmydog.com or call 336-201-7475. Follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jimmydogpetportraits.
One of Jimmy's favorite look-out spots on his daily walk.
Every few weeks Jimmy and I would visit my parents, John and Edith, in Dallas, North Carolina. This was one of Jimmy’s favorite things to do since my father would take us on some great walks at the local parks and school grounds. When we arrived, Jimmy would immediately start barking at my father to tell him he was ready to go. My father and I, Jimmy, and my father’s two dogs, Sissy and Brownie, would pile into his truck for our excursion. Jimmy would run free on these walks, free again to explore as he had done when he walked on the parkway. One time we even encountered a man riding a horse. The horse was jumping into the air but luckily did not land on the dogs. Jimmy always had the best times on those walks with my father. The last walk we went on, in January 2000, Jimmy got stuck in a briar patch, which I had to get him untangled from. These walks usually lasted well over an hour, and we would often go deep into the woods, far removed from the urban environment in which we lived our daily life. Special times in the woods with the dogs and my dad.
Jimmy had a variety of toys as a pup but his favorite was very unusual — a pink flamingo. Stephanie and I had received this large plastic bird as a gag-wedding gift a few years earlier. I presented it to Jimmy shortly after he arrived at our home, and he took to it immediately. Right away, he pounced on it, picked it up by its neck and carried it around the room, despite the fact that the three-foot-tall flamingo dwarfed Jimmy’s short, puppy frame. He often carried it around with him, occasionally stopping to chew on it. We kept the flamingo in Jimmy’s plastic toy box, its head and neck towering above the rest of his possessions. Sadly, we eventually had to throw it away because it started to break into pieces.
Jimmy as a puppy. He was SO cute and sweet. We didn’t know then that he was born with hip dysplasia and that was the most comfortable way for him to lay.
Todd loves painting dogs and cats and Jimmy was one of his first subjects and continues to be an inspiration
Jimmy loved going to the beach with us. He never cared much for playing in the water. Because he was part poodle, the water heavily weighed him down. At least that is how we explained his aversion to getting wet. But he did love to sit beneath the umbrella with a cold bowl of water, watching the world go by. He loved to watch people but would growl at the dogs long after they had passed by, giving him a sense of power without having to fight for it. As they disappeared into the distance it seemed that Jimmy’s growl caused them to leave. This would always make us laugh. “Tough dog,” we would say.
Jimmy also enjoyed walking down the beach with his nose in the wind. A windy day compressed all the smells and, in a sense, compressed time. At least that’s how we liked to view it. He knew the word “wind” and when hearing the word would put his nose in the air. Jimmy was a very sweet dog.
When Jimmy was around 10 years old, he had two run-ins with the police, both occurring within the same year. This was his only crime spree except for the occasional pedestrian violations that he was quietly guilty of during his walks.
The first incident occurred at a hotel. We always took Jimmy on our trips, and one weekend we traveled to Athens, Georgia, for a surprise birthday party for Stephanie’s mother. On the evening of the party, we had to leave Jimmy alone at the hotel for a few hours. Jimmy was usually well behaved, but on this night — for some reason — he howled constantly, prompting the people in the next room to call the police.
Later on that year we were staying at Stephanie’s father’s house in New Jersey. We went to New York City for an evening and had to leave Jimmy alone in the house. Somehow he tripped the security system, which automatically alerted the police. When we arrived at the house, the police were there with an automated voice repeating, “Alert: Sector A.” Jimmy greeted us at the door, unaware of the trouble he had caused. Jimmy was reluctant to cross state lines after these two encounters with the boys in blue.
Incognito JImmy, hiding from the law
Jimmydog Journal: The Adventures of Jimmy • By Todd Belcher
There once was a dog name Jimmy. Abandoned as a pup, Jimmy was adopted by North Carolina artists Todd and Stephanie Belcher. The fluffy fellow filled their lives with joy. After a long and happy life, Jimmy passed away in 2003. When the husband-and-wife team formed their own design firm, they named the company after their faithful companion. The following are a few of Todd’s reminiscences about Jimmy and their adventures together.
This is one of our favorite photos of Jimmy.
A Walk on the Wild Side
The first two years Stephanie and I had Jimmy, which was in the early 1990s, we lived in Boone, North Carolina, right beside the Blue Ridge Parkway. We had our very own path — at least it seemed to be “ours” — which began a few yards from our front door and extended a couple of miles along the parkway.
The path was so close to our house and isolated that I never put Jimmy on a leash. I would just say, “Let’s go for a walk,” and he would wag his tail and bark in anticipation. I would open the door and off we’d go.
The path first went up a hill, passed a field of cows to our left and then leveled off near a rock quarry, which was originally mined for the building of the parkway. Below the quarry was a spring surrounded by a number of large rocks. Jimmy would run a few feet ahead of us, and he would often explore the rocks at the spring and quarry. We were lucky never to have encountered mountain lions or bears, although we did occasionally see a deer or two. We would sit atop a large rock, looking at the landscape below. At one spot, we could see the silhouette of Grandfather Mountain. Our daily walks lasted about an hour or so, and they were the highlight of his and my day.
Jimmy was usually well behaved on our walks except on one occasion when Stephanie took him shortly before dusk. While he typically ran past the field of cows without incident, on this evening he turned left off the path and ran into the pasture, barking at the cows — some of which started running toward him. Stephanie called for him but he remained with his bovine buddies. She chased him among the cows until it got dark. Then she went back to the house to retrieve a flashlight. A few minutes later, there she was, standing in a field of cows, waving a flashlight, and yelling at a disobedient dog. Some of the cows even started to approach her but thankfully, Jimmy eventually tired and acquiesced. Luckily, this never happened again.