The Stuffed animal repair of very dapper Habersham

Habersham’s is a felt and knit dog who was in desperate need of wound treatment. He came with a truly interesting backstory. His person wrote:

We met up a little over 6 years ago when we traveled to a little town in North Carolina to take a tour of a house we hoped to build in Ohio.  He (Habersham) was a memento of that trip and the house we fell in love with during it, and has had a spot in our living room ever since. 

Fast forward 6 years, and alas we are within weeks of moving into this very house.  The journey to get here has been long and arduous.  After so many delays we were finally able to start construction, only to have a builder steal money, followed by months of delays and hassles with a new builder.  What was intended to be a dream has been a veritable nightmare, and has taken its toll on us in more ways than I can count.

So, of course, we were excited to have Habersham come along with us to help bring some good energy and fond memories to the house.  Unfortunately our cleaning lady threw him in the basket of dog toys earlier today for some reason and before we discovered him the puppy had.  Alas, he is a little too much like me these days, tattered and a bit worse for the wear.

Here is the diagnosis photos they sent:

What you can’t see, is in addition to the leg and muzzle wounds, Habersham also lost the tip of his tail. But otherwise, he really was in good shape, and still quite a dapper fellow.

The plan was just to treat his wounds, but in order to make the scars as inconspicuous as possible, we would take a small transplant of fabric from the back of his head to use to repair his muzzle, then repair the leg with new fabric as needed. No spa for Habersham, the puppy had not been particularly slobbery. 🙂

Here he is, just before he went home. Wounds repaired, new nose, new tail tip, and looking dapper and dashing again, ready to grace his new home with luck, smiles, and hugs.

His family wrote:

He looks great!  Thank you for getting that done.  I love that his “patch” is on the back and hardly noticeable.

And Habersham flew home to his new Ohio home.

Lucky the teddy bear visits the teddy bear hospital for a wash and new overalls!

Lucky the teddy bear’s family thought it was time for some special care. He was pushing 40, hadn’t had a bath since the Eighties, and his person’s person thought he’d look cute if he got overalls. Here are a couple of his diagnosis photos:

We agreed on a spa, seam tightening, fur transplants as needed for bald spots, and new blue corduroy overalls with a pocket — he was a big fan of Corduroy the bear of book fame.

Here he is in his bubble bath:

If you look closely, you can see the water under the bubbles is turning tan as he gets clean.

Here’s his heart being made and installed with a bit of his original stuffing (blue to match his new overalls):

And here he is all better and ready to fly home!

Lucky’s family were close enough to drive down to the hospital and pick him up in person. They wrote:

He looks great – I definitely approve. You did a great job, and I’m so lucky to have found someone with your skill.

A quick fix for Little Bear to Restore his vision!

I thought I’d share a few “quick fix” stuffed animal repair since I’ve been talking about patients with more complicated issues for a while. This should also make those of you who like shorter posts happy. 🙂

Little Bear was the victim of a bit of rough housing with the family dog, and lost his eyes and the fur that made his eye sockets:

He didn’t need a spa, or any other repairs, just vision restored. Here he is all better, seeing the world 20/20 again:

He flew home to Nevada and his family wrote “Awww, hello Little Bear! He looks wonderful! Thank you so much!”

Randy the Rhino’s Story

I’d like you all to meet Randy the Rhino.  While I’ve had patients who’ve traveled the world with their people, I think Randy gets the most traveled medal.  He has traveled over a million miles on the hood of his person’s big rig!  Here he is in days of past glory:

Unfortunately, Randy had a little accident.  He slipped, and before his person could stop and get him, another vehicle had run him over.  Here he is when he arrived at the stuffed animal hospital for repair.  He was carefully bundled.  What you can’t see is his people actually used a balloon as part of his padding.  I thought that was a great idea!

and dressed:

As you can see, he had major face damage.  Once his clothes came off, you could see he also had lower spine damage, and that previous injuries were held together with duct tape:

Randy’s people wanted to keep him as close to original as possible. They opted for facial reconstruction and wound repair.  He also needed new horns and a new tail transplanted.  There wouldn’t be a spa, because he was planning to go right back out on the road.

I kept some of his duct tape… removing it would have caused more damage than not, and it was part of his personality.  His new skin was black, of a similar velour to his original skin.  The idea is for it to fade to match over time, as he has direct sun exposure.  Here he is after surgeries:

Randy made it home in time for Christmas.  His person’s daughter (who is the one who sent him to the hospital) said:

He looks great thank you for all the work you did!

Here’s hoping Randy travels another million miles along America’s highways.  If you see him on the road in passing, don’t forget to say hi!

Keai is home in Singapore!

Keai is a very small bunny. Her family hand delivered her to the stuffed animal hospital from Singapore for full fur recovering and a gentle spa in January.  Here she is on arrival:

She also had a full wardrobe with her… more on that below.

She started, as many patients do, with a bubble bath:

She was so tiny, her heart went into her head rather than her body!  Once cleaned and stuffed she got recovered.  Here are her first photos showing off her new fur:

And here she is proving she still fits in her clothes (she came with four costume changes!):

Her family asked for a few adjustments and photos of other angles:

Then she got dressed again and climbed into her travel case with her rubber ducky and carrot for the long overnight flight back to Singapore without a human escort:

When she arrived home, her person had her right back in front of the camera.  Doing yoga (side plank):

Playing with her ducky:

Testing that all her clothes at home fit still:

And dressing up like the flight attendants who helped her get home:

Finally, her person sent combined before and after photos, so you can really see the difference:

Keai’s family wrote:

Thank you so much Doctor Beth! She is so perfect!

Bear aka the bear from Grease aka Fonzy Bear

Bear is a Reeses Valentine’s Day Bear. Doesn’t he look like he should be riding in Grease Lightning with Danny and the T-Birds?  He wasn’t particularly old, but his signature leather jacket was wearing the way many a teddy’s leather nose has worn, and then the puppy got a hold of him and injured his eye.  So… his person thought it was time for him to fly from VA to CA for some surgery, a spa, and a new coat.  Here he is on arrival at the hospital:

In case you are curious, this is what his jacket looked like, once it was removed (it was actually sewn to create his arms and part of his body, more on that below):

So Bear came to the hospital with a donor for a new jacket, for some eye surgery and a gentle spa.  Here’s his bubble bath (even cool bears enjoy bubbles):

Then a bit of surgery.  His jacket was actually part of his body.  He had part of a white t-shirt for his chest, but the jacket made up his arms and his back, and connected his head and the bottom of his body.  So his jacket was removed, he got stuffed, and another jacket was carefully removed from the donor and transplanted onto Bear.  Here he is all cool again (and with 20/20 vision restored):

(I promise, that’s his tag not a hole on his bottom)

Bear flew back solo across the country and arrived safely in VA.  His family wrote:

He looks fantastic and we are so happy to have him back! Thank you so much for all of your wonderful work.

Gumdrop the blue teddy bear

I get lots of patients who are going bald in the hospital.  Many are down to the smooth fabric that was under their fur, with holes in that.  But I have to say, Gumdrop was probably the baldest.  He had worn not only to the fabric, but the fabric was gone and almost all that was left was a thin thread mesh over his foam stuffing… that and his eyes and nose and some scraps:

His person and I agreed the best solution would be to fully recover him (without a spa, as really, he was his stuffing).  But Gumdrop’s eyes and nose weren’t three dimensional, so stitching new fur around them wouldn’t be sturdy.  Instead, the plan was to carefully removed them, and put them back in place on top of his new fur.  (this only works for fabric features, and only sometimes).

Here were the fur options we found for him:

His person opted for the softer, shorter ply fleece.  Here’s Gumdrop all better and ready to fly home:

His person’s response: “Terrific!”

Meow with the custom fabric transplants

I’ve been so excited to share Meow’s story with you all! I mean, he’s a partial recover, and you’ve seen those before, but in this case, I used multiple fabrics to replicate his striped original fabric and I was really happy with how he came out… and so was his family. So, without further ado, may I present Meow!

Meow is a very small cat, maybe 7″ long? Less if he’s sitting. But he had been very well loved in his short life. His person’s uncle wrote to me, asking if I could help. Here is the diagnosis photo he sent:

Just fyi, his balding was also pretty serious on his back.

There were a few options for care, but treating his balding was definitely the most serious concern. In the end, his family opted for new eye, bald spot treatment with transplants but not a full recover, and a gentle spa, as well as wound repair.

So he flew to the hospital from Washington state, not too long a flight, and started his treatment with a spa:

Next, he got new eyes. His eyes were originally green – the cataracts were so bad, I couldn’t really tell the original color till I took out his eyes and looked on the backside of them. Here he is with vision restored to 20/20:

Next were transplants…. Perfect matches for striped fur are impossible without a donor (and sometimes even donors aren’t perfect). I’ve done transplants where we use the background fur color, and add black stripes for tigers (you’ve seen some of those here) but Meow’s stripes weren’t black. Sometimes we just use a solid close to one of the stripe colors in that case, and that was an option… and actually the plan for Meow. But then I had two fabrics which matched his two stripe colors really closely:

I talked with his family about it, and we agreed to mix the colors in the transplants… a little of one, a little of the other. But keep in mind, stripes on animals aren’t exact lines, so this wasn’t a case of making a fabric by sewing strips on a machine, and then using the new fabric. Each piece was chose, and shaped for the area where the bald spot was, and sewn in separately. It was more complicated than this surgery usually is, but also kind of meditative. 🙂

So… here is Meow all better! (He did get a heart btw, I just didn’t photo it)

His family was thrilled too. “He looks great!” they wrote. And Meow flew north and home.

Beary the teddy bear in a vest (sort of)

So Beary is over 50 years old.  His person wrote asking about “ a new coat, stuffing, facial features and attire”.  Here are some of his diagnosis photos:

As you can see, he had many wounds, and many layers.  His person also sent a photo of a younger Beary (not from his youngest days, but more middle age):

As you can see, he once sort of had a built in vest, with white pom poms, and he had red in his ears, and it looks like short fur.  We agreed together that the best treatment for Beary would be to strip him down to his original layer, give him a spa, and then recover him in new fabric, giving him a new nose and eyes and pom poms.  Here’s Beary when he arrived at the hospital (he flew cross country from NYC):

As you can see, he had lots of interesting layers. 🙂  I began removing the layers:

And eventually we got down to his base:

As you can see, he’s been well loved!  His stuffing came out and he got a bubble bath:

Once dry, he got restuffed with a heart of original stuffing included:

The heart was made with some of his older layers of fabric, too.  Next step was choosing a new white fur (we had agreed a red velvet would be good for his red bits).  We had 5 options, and his person chose a short fur. 

Soon Beary was recovered and we were going through options.  Here he is with the nose she eventually chose, and a button we were considering instead of pom poms:

But we went for the pom poms, and felt eyes.  Originally we tried black eyes with white pupils:

Then just black:

But eventually we reversed it and went for white eyes with a black pupil.  They were all felt to match his original ones.

And here he is all better, and ready to fly home:

You can see the white felt blended into his fur once it was all sewn together, but it gave his eyes a bit of depth. 

Beary flew home to NYC, through the December cold and package crush (patients always take longer to fly in December because all the shippers are so busy).  He made it home in 4 days, which was fairly good.  His person wrote:

Dear Beth,
I cannot tell you how thrilled I am with Beary and am so happy to have him back! He looks absolutely amazing, and you are clearly a miracle worker. Every detail was administered with such care and craftsmanship, and I am so very grateful for the care you put into reviving him. He will be cherished for many years to come!

Isaac’s Story

I know it’s been a bit since I wrote…. everything is fine here and I hope it is with all of you.  May was just been a very busy month in the hospital – so busy that I am now scheduling July patients, because it leaked into June.  But Isaac’s story has been sitting in my head, waiting to be told since he went home earlier this month, so here it is, a bit of happiness to share with all of you. 🙂

Isaac’s person first wrote back in December.  She had been referred to the hospital by a previous patient:

My bunny, Isaac, has been with me for as long as I can remember.  I would love to get him fixed up to pass on to my daughter.

Lots of my patients come in when they are getting ready to go to another generation.  I usually suggest a spa, to get them spruced up, and any wound repair that is required.  Here are Isaac’s diagnostic photos:

As you can see, he was in pretty good shape.  Fluffing up his fur, supplemental stuffing, and then repairing the bald spot on his tail and recovering his pawpads would have him spruced up and ready for a new generation of hugs.

He waited a bit to come to the hospital, arriving in mid-May.  He came with special fabric to be used for his heart, and another fabric specifically for his pawpads.  We would find fur to recover his tail in the hospital’s resources.  Here’s Isaac in his bubble bath:

Looking a little less matted already! And here’s his heart being made and installed using the purple fabric his person sent:

Next up was choosing fur for his cotton tail, and I had just the right one to be a close color match and nice and fluffy (if you look closely, you can see his heart peaking out at the bottom of his spine there):

Surgery proceeded with the recovered tail, and recovered pawpads.  His person had sent a lovely navy faux suede for his paws, and soon Isaac was ready to go home!

Isaac flew home to Alabama and arrived safely at the beginning of this month.  His person wrote:

The first hug when I took him out of the box was just the greatest thing ever.  Thank you so very much!