You’ve probably heard of Dalmatians, and perhaps you’ve heard of Dalmatian Rescue, but you’ve probably never heard of Dalmatian Quilt Rescue — mainly because it never existed until this week. Linda Reid of Santa Rosa owns two Dalmatians, and every year she donates a quilt to the Dalmatian Club of America for its fundraiser. This year’s event is called the Sunflower Classic, so she created a quilt that depicts her friend’s Dalmatian, Romeo, sitting next to a towering sunflower.
Linda, who is a professional quiltmaker and has made hundreds of quilts, had finished the quilt, but decided she wanted to put a sunflower border on it. However, after she added the border, the inner portion of the piece howled in protest and refused to lie down. No, Romeo! Bad dog! She brought the quilt to me with a plan for how to make Romeo obey and lie flat. Plan A didn’t work, but plan B did. Romeo became a good dog, and the Dalmatian Club of America has a wonderful quilt en route to its event.
“The Sunflower Classic is an event for show dogs, and the money it raises goes toward medical research for Dalmatians,” Linda explained. “I had a Dalmatian that died of renal failure, so I donate a quilt to the auction every year.”
In the future, though, Linda says she is going to support the Dalmatian Rescue organization. “Dalmatians are high maintenance dogs,” she explained. “They like to be central to the family, involved in everything going on in the household. With the housing market in collapse, Dalmatians are being moved around, and that is distressing for them. They crave stability, and it breaks my heart when these dogs can no longer be cared for.”
For more information about the Dalmatian Club of America and the Sunflower Classic (April 2-9, 2009), visit the club’s website: www.thedca.org.
