Classic Pet Paintings

Frattellone Project a Success!

Paul — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 19:05:10 +0000

We left October 19th for a 2 1/2 week road trip across the country to meet and photograph the 12 wonderful Veterans and their service dogs that will be the subjects for our 2014 Calendar “Rescued Heroes- Veterans Edition“. In late December we tried to think of a way to make a positive difference for a Minnesota veteran with PTSD with our current 2013 “Rescued Heroes” calendar. Long story short, we found an eager partner with Mike Frattallone and their 18 Frattallone Hardware stores in the Twin City metro area. We donated 1000 calendars to their 18 stores and with their help, all were sold at $15.00 each on their front counters reaching our goal of $15,000 for a service dog for a Minnesota veteran. All funds raised went into the “Fitz Fund,” named in honor of our calendar cover dog, the service dog to Tony, a Minnesota Veteran of Iraq. K9s For Warriors in Florida will be selecting and training our Veteran from the applications they received from Minnesota veterans with PTSD.

(from left) Me, Dave Haugland (our printer), Tony and Fitz, and Mike Frattellone (the wonderful owner of Frattellone’s Hardward)

We want to thank the wonderful media help we got throughout the month. It started with a great column by Gail Rosenblum of the Minneapolis Star Tribune (read it here) and mention by Mary Rosko of Fox News-both on December 6th, the day the fundraiser began. The Minnesota Beyond the Yellow Ribbon groups, American Legions, and VFW’s all helped spread the word along with TV stations, KARE 11 and KSTP, who mentioned us in their broadcasts. We even had a nice feature spot on the Good News Page of the Huffington Post (read the story here), thanks to Hayley Hudson of their editorial team.

At the left is a picture taken at Frattallone Hardware in St. Paul when Mike Frattallone presented the check to Tony. In the picture left to right is Paul Sansale, artist, Dave Haugland, Tony, Fitz and Mike Frattallone.

We would like to give a BIG thank you to our wonderful partner in this endevour, Mike Frattellone, who helped give us a way to reach our goal of helping a Vet with PTSD from our home state of Minnesota get a service dog. It would have been impossible without his support and generosity! Also, we want to give a very special thanks to Dave Haugland, owner of Impressive Prints in St. Paul whose generosity has allowed us to put “Made In The USA” on our calendar next to the flag.

Next year we have even better bigger goals – let’s see what we can all do together to allow more service dogs to come to the rescue of the over 14,000 Minnesota veterans who are dealing with PTSD every day! Stay tuned and thanks to everyone for supporting what we do!

Me and Fitz, our wonderful cover service dog!

Our Road Trip – “In Search of Heroes” – All 6045 Miles!

adam_petpaintings — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 21:14:23 +0000

Our Dashboard at the end – 6,045 miles!!

Our Road Trip has now come to an end, it could not have gone any better and we are so grateful for the experience. We met just the most incredible Veterans and their wonderful service dogs. These men and women were great examples of what can happen when a Veteran with PTSD or TBI is matched with a properly trained and screened service dog. We could go on and on retelling their amazing stories. You can find out more in the public blog I wrote called “In Search of Heroes”, read a little about our visits with each and see some of the photos of their dogs. We traveled to Louisville, Nashville, Memphis, Charlotte, Jacksonville, Dallas and finally to Albuquerque, New Mexico before heading back to Minnesota. Here is the link: http://rescuedogart.blogspot.com/

We were so happy to meet the people behind the scenes of the two organizations that helped us connect with these Veterans. K9s For Warriors in Jacksonville had just moved into their new facility before we arrived. This property called “The Dog House” included their new office areas, a beautiful house where each group of four or five Veterans stay during their 3 week training period, the attached indoor kennel and training area. It also had a pool, outdoor deck and a huge fenced in area for the dogs to train and play. But the people there were what made it really great. You can just feel the pride and passion they feel for what they are doing. We met their trainers Brett Simon and Sherry Keshner, Shari Duval- President, Sheri Martinez- volunteer and graduate, and Sandi Capra the development director who helped me soooooo much! It was a very busy place as they were just getting ready for their next group of “warriors”. These Veterans were arriving the next day and would be meet the dogs that would ultimately change their lives. What an exciting place it was and we can’t thank them enough for everything they did to make our trip a success.

Paul (L) with Jim Stanek during the Road Trip.

Our last city was Albuquerque where we were honored to meet the Veteran who started this whole journey for us. Jim Stanek and his wife Lindsey founded Paws and Stripes. Last year someone that had a dog business in the Twin Cities, bought a case of our 2012 calendars as a fundraiser for an organization called PawsAndStripes.org of New Mexico. She suggested I take a look at their website and see what they do. Jim Stanek, a three time Veteran of Iraq, had a video on the home page where he explained what life was like for him after his service was over and he tried to function with PTSD and TBI and how his life changed with his service dog Sarge. That video changed the focus our life and we are doing what we are doing now because of his story. So meeting Jim was a big, big honor for us. When you talk to Jim his passion is just contagious. He has a mission in life to help as many Veterans as he can. He and Lindsey should be so proud of the work they are doing and the Foundation they developed together. We just can’t say enough about Jim- he’s just an amazing man that will continue to change lives. Watch his video on their home page and see if you don’t see what I mean. Here’s the link: http://www.pawsandstripes.org/
The biggest thank you goes to all the Veterans that shared their stories with us. It was a very emotional trip – one we will never, ever forget. A nice coincidence, was that one of the Veterans we met with, Ryan, was from MN. His service dog Spirit will be featured in the Calendar. Here is a picture when we stopped for lunch in St. Augustine.
The photographs of the dogs Paul got were great and he has now started on his first portrait. We hope to honor these Veterans and their devoted dogs with a calendar that will inspire and give hope to other Veterans facing the same challenges. We also hope it inspires folks across the country to find a way to help connect the Veterans in their own states with service dogs. These wonderful organizations are few and far between and we have many veterans searching for a way to get back to a life with dignity. They deserve all of our help.

Veteran Justin from MN in St. Augustine, FL

Thanks To All Our Kickstarter Supporters

adam_petpaintings — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 15:50:44 +0000

We want to thank all the wonderful people that helped us reach our goal. The following supporters of our project allowed us to not only print our calendar, but continue doing what we love to do. How do we ever thank you all?!!

John Schütze
Peggy White
Susanne Wollman
Parisri
Aleda Richardson
Michele Spychalla
Eric Damon Walters
Betty Ann Meenan
Adrienne Forrister
Debbie Marcaccini
Corrine Bussa
Violet Burnham
Julee Steele
Michelle Darsow
Nicole Zuraitis
Sorrel Wunderlin
Teresha Aird
Barbara J.
Kimberly Copeland
Ben Edwards
Ruth Meyer
Justin Guggisberg
Judy Kellogg
Mike Kubes
Nancy Benson
Chuck Heubach
Sirkka Kauffman
Jane Huebner
Louise Madison
Mary Montez
Patricia Fortier
Jo Ann Griffey
Dan Sheff
Frederick Holzheiser
Prairie Yeti
Cynthia White

Pamela Janisch
Linda Nelson
Terry Smith
Pamela Krizak
Craig Cunningham
Carol Day
Thad Phetteplace
Gregory Cotton
Lori Rogers
Lorna Anderson
Judy Rose Johnson
Gail Severson
Colleen H. Hampl
Marcia Fritzmeier
Cynthia Doolittle
Patricia Breyne
Florence Roberts
Theresa Flolo
Jill Cook
Ericka Tung
Ann Hagen
Sarah Strunk
Marge Dent
P K Muth
Anna Crowson
Melanie Mix
Lissanne
Barb Hesse
PXL Rogue
Cynthia Koll Tengwall
Gordy Hoffman
Marsha Johnston
Gwen Riedl
Robert J Belknap
Peggy Wolf
Terry Hauser

Scott Monson
Mary Brandstetter
Donna Chicone
Donnmaria Tucker Killinger
Stacy Curtis
Mark Montondon
Cathy Glassman
Melissa Fate
Paula Frakes
George F Brooke
Lillian Souers
Jackie Mayer-Tveter
Mark Johnson
Kathleen Coleman
Deb Busch
Matthew Huerter
Denny Kurogi
Susan Ainsworth
Julie Flaherty
Walt Boyes
Shari Johnson
Jeanne Jacobson
Mary Burdick
Barbara Hiller
Karen Kaehler
Bridget Borrell
Dan Brinkman
Andrew Tengwall
James Sjoblom
Dave Hanson
Joe & Marcia Gilbertson
Becky Reich Moradian
Dana Danielson
Jody McDonough
Denise Edwards
Pat And Bruce Tengwall

Beverly Falk
Eileen Carlson
Connie Searl
Lynn Sedlack
Annie Sorensen
Betsy Lake
Annelise Aaro
Jayne Thielke
John McCall
Beth Varchmin
Carolyn Bonifas
Bruce Tengwall
Susan Fate
Rachel Anderson
ELAINE WONG
Rosemary Edghill
Dan Tengwall
Lauri Brooke
Stephanie Carlson
Caryn Addante
John Ellingson
Patricia Brook LemmTabor
Justin Houser
Thomas J. Estrem
Kimberly Mabry
Steve Ricard
Janice Bickford Heikenen
Charlynn Robertson
Michael Basara
Sara Lawrence
Tony Tengwall
Denise Petrie
Vicki Hunt
Judy Houser-Tanaka
Casey Sansale
Jennifer Hover

Upcoming Roadtrip and Travel Blog

Paul — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 20:14:52 +0000

Hi Everyone,

Soon Paul and I will be leaving on a road trip to photograph the rescued service dogs belonging to Veterans. I’m going to write a blog along the way on Blogger.com called “In Search of Heroes” -so stay tuned and follow along with us as we meet our “Heroes”. (It’s not live yet, but we’ll post a link when it is). Be sure to follow us on Facebook (link on top of page), to get the latest updates.

These wonderful dogs and their owners will be the subjects of our 2014 Calendar “Rescued Heroes”- Veterans Edition. We have made arrangements to meet them in Louisville, Memphis, Charlotte, Jacksonville, Dallas and Albuquerque and places in between. As soon as I post the first day’s events, I’ll put the link on FB. So come along with us- it should be fun- 3700 miles in 16 days – oh boy!

Kickstarter Project Successfully Funded!!

Paul — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 20:03:38 +0000

SUCCESS WITH KICKSTARTER – WE’RE PRINTING!

Hi Everybody

Thanks to all your incredible help with Kickstarter, the 2013 Rescued Heroes Calendar will be printing!!

Dave Haugland, President of Impressive Prints (right) and Me

Here I am following a meeting with Dave Haugland, president of Impressive Print in St. Paul. This is a company that always delivers incredible quality- we couldn’t be in better hands with printing the calendar!

We should have it ready to send out to you sometime in the next two weeks. And thanks again to all of you who had any part to play in our Kickstarter success, we couldn’t have done it without you!

Paul

Kickstarter Project – Help us Get to Print!

Paul — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 15:46:29 +0000

Hi Everyone,

It’s been quite some time since our last blog, and a lot has happened since then! We found 12 great rescued dog and owner teams to include in our 2013 calendar “Rescued Heroes”. I’ve finished all of their paintings and layouts, put on the finishing touches and it is ready to print. But to get to print, we are going to need everyone’s help.

Last year’s “Rescue Dog To Therapy Dog” was our first endeavor at producing and printing a small run of calendars. They were very well received and we were encouraged to go on to our second year. Through that process we learned we needed to print a larger run than we did last year in order to continue. We have worked very hard this past year on the 2013 “Rescued Heroes” Calendar and are extremely proud of it.

Here’s where you come in.

Because of the small run and scope of our last calendar, we need to raise funds to print at the volume needed to continue this year. We started a project on Kickstarter.com to help with this print cost. So, we’re asking for your help by supporting our Kickstarter project, receive some rewards for helping, and spread the word to help us reach our goal. Reaching our goal with this project will allow us to get our new 2013 Calendar “Rescued Heroes” out to you all. Check out this short video to get an idea about our project:

Not familiar with Kickstarter Projects?

Kickstarter is a funding platform for creative products. Every project creator (like us) sets their project’s funding goal and deadline. Creators come up with special rewards for their backers to chose from and select. If the project succeeds in reaching its funding goal all backers’ credit cards are charged when time expires. If the project falls short no one is charged.

Here’s the steps to backing our project:

First follow this link to our project and read all about it. We have 30 days for backers to select rewards that add up to the amount of our goal. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1529004775/rescued-heroes-calendar-the-art-stories-of-therapy
Take a look at the rewards listed on the right side of the page and decide which to select.
Click on the green box located above the rewards that says “Back this Project”
Select your reward and move on to the Amazon page for your payment information.
If we meet our goal by the deadline, our project is funded and you along with all other backers will be charged on the last day of the period. If a project isn’t successfully funded, no one pays anything.
If successful, a person from Kickstarter will email you for details like mailing address, etc. so your rewards can be filled.

Don’t forget to check in with Kickstarter and watch the progress to our goal, knowing you are one of the reasons we made it! When successful, we will give the go ahead to our printer and get your rewards quickly into your hands.

PLEASE KNOW HOW GRATEFUL WE ARE FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT!!!

Casting Call – 2013 Calendar!!

Lynn — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 22:03:13 +0000

Casting Call – 2013 Rescue Dog to Therapy Dog Calendar

Hey everyone-

We are looking for rescued therapy dogs to feature in our next 2013 “Rescue Dog to Therapy Dog” calendar. Here’s the “Casting Call” Info:

Where: Adogo Pet Hotel – Minnetonka

When: Saturday, January 21st from 3-5pm

To apply for a time slot, contact Paul by emailing to paul@rescuedogart.com. Please include your rescue story, volunteer experience, which organization you are registered with, a picture of your dog or a better yet, a picture of you and your dog. For directions to the Adogo Pet Hotel go to www.adogopethotels.com/contact

If you would like to find out more about this calendar go to our website www.RescueDogArt.com. You can also read about the calendar in two wonderful newspaper articles- one in the Pioneer Press by Amy Carlson Gustafson and the other in the Star Tribune by columnist Gail Rosenblum. Here are the article links:
Pioneer Press: http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_19435980
Star Tribune: http://www.startribune.com/local/135630263.html

Please forward this information to anyone you feel may be interested. Remember there are limited time slots available so please apply as soon as possible. Let’s hope for good weather and thank you for your interest!

See you on the 21st

Paul and Lynn

We’re on the Victoria Stilwell Podcast!!

Lynn — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 20:10:46 +0000

Recently Paul and I received an email regarding our calendar that put us “over the moon”. We are very big fans of Victoria Stilwell and not only admire her wonderful training methods, but absolutely love her show on the Animal Planet “It’s Me or the Dog”. The day following Thanksgiving we got this email:

Happy Thanksgiving! Can you let Lynn know that tomorrow I mention their calendar in my podcast. So they can go to www.positively.com/podcasts to hear what I said and there will be a link to the calendar website on the podcast page under the episode.

A friend of Victoria’s and a trainer herself in Atlanta had handed her a copy of our calendar recently. We are so thrilled with Victoria’s Positively Podcast comments and so grateful that she took the time to acknowledge Paul’s work. It doesn’t get much better than that!! The Podcast is #207 and the mention of the calendar comes at around the thirteen minute mark. And thanks so much to her friend, Joyce, who brought us to her attention! Take a listen:

Victoria Stilwell’s Positively Podcast – #207

RescueDogArt featured in the Pioneer Press

Lynn — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 19:27:07 +0000

This past Wednesday, Amy Carlson Gustafson, a reporter with the St. Paul Pioneer Press, wrote a wonderful article about our calendar “Rescue Dog to Therapy Dog.” This beautifully written article not only made our calendar sales sky rocket, but allowed us to hear from so many people this week about how our calendar touched them. Many told us about their own experiences and we once again were reminded over and over about the magic of a dog.
If you have not read her article, here is the link and once more thank you Amy Gustafson for bringing attention to our calendar in such a well written article!

Pioneer Press – Every dog has his month in calendar devoted to rescue therapy canines – by Amy Carlson Gustafson

The article on twincities.com about our Rescue Dog Art Calendar

Come See Us at Woofstock!

Lynn — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 21:07:56 +0000

Hi everyone-

RescueDogArt will be coming to Linden Hills! We will be a vendor at Woofstock, an event taking place this Saturday September 10th from 10-3:00. At our booth, we will be displaying original art, selling our calendars, bookmarks, and cards- this is a great time to buy early for the dog lovers on your Xmas list.

The beautiful, historic neighborhood of Linden Hills is tucked away between the shores of Lake Calhoun and Lake Harriet. If you plan on finding us, we are Booth 24 and are close to Famous Dave’s. The weather promises to be picture perfect, so grab your pooch and head to Woofstock. For more info:http://www.lindenhillswoofstock.net/Woofstock/Home.html

Event Info

Woofstock

Where: Linden Hills (south of downtown Minneapolis)

Booth 24 – Near Famous Dave’s (see event map below)

When: 10am – 3pm

View Larger Map