Sadie Rae Shortpants

​Meet Sadie Rae Shortpants, a German Shorthair Pointer owned by my brother Nathan. She recently crossed the Rainbow Bridge at the grand old age of fifteen. 

One of her favorite pastimes was coralling as many of her human packmates as she could with her leash.

​She was not a lap dog, though sometimes she thought she was.

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​Sadie was also my model for my potential canine handpaw pattern. She would very much prefer that I Leave Her Feet Alone, but she did cooperate enough for me to learn a lot and make a few clay sketches. What a good puppy!! 

Fun things I’ve learned from Sadie about dog feet (other than that they smell like Fritos): the claws do not come out of the center of the toes, they come out of the side closest to the center of the foot. The first and fourth toe are not the same size, but the first toe (the one closest to the dew claw) is bigger and longer, like a pointer finger, and the forth toe is smaller, like a pinky finger. 



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And, the palmar pad moves in ways that hurt my brain.  

I'm weirdly into dog feet. I love their sculpted knuckles and long elegant toes. I’ve used the free Freakhound canine paw pattern found here  for my past three partials and really do like the pattern, but I think a bigger paw would look better with the size heads I’d been making. So now I have a lot of clay sketches and an excuse to try to make a canine handpaw pattern of my own! Stay tuned!

(Don't fart Sadie....)