Crafter puts skills to use to help man's best friend

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February 13, 2012

By Shirley O'Shea Contributing Writer The Daily Star Mon Feb 13, 2012, 02:30 AM EST

Dogs in need have always had a friend in Kathy Eckelmann.

"I love any dog," Eckelmann, 55, of Gilbertsville, said Thursday. And she has been putting her concern for man's _ and woman's _ best friend into action.

Eckelmann knits sweaters for rescue toy poodles _ dogs surrendered or abandoned and are in need of special care _ and sends them to a not-for-profit organization, Toy Poodle Rescue, in Dover, Mass., which "is dedicated to poodle rescue, re-homing and rehabilitation," according to its website, www.toypoodlerescue.net.

"A few years back, I had gotten myself a couple of toy poodles," Eckelmann said. She said she searched the Internet for stories about rescued poodles, out of personal interest. She came upon toypoodlerescue.net.

Eckelmann said that Toy Poodle Rescue arranges for volunteers to take dogs into their homes and for dog adoptions. The website has links to other sites with opportunities to help the cause.

"It touched me when I read the stories about the dogs in their care," Eckelmann said. "(Toy Poodle Rescue) needed crafters. I love to crochet."

Eckelmann said she decided to use her abundance of leftover wool to make little pullovers that keep the lapdogs snug.

"It doesn't take that much to make a sweater," Eckelmann said.

Since she began the project at the end of October, she has knitted and sent off 20 sweaters, Eckelmann said. The sweaters are given directly for use by dogs or are sold to raise funds for Toy Poodle Rescue, she said.

Several of her sweater creations were Christmas-themed, Eckelmann said, with red and green stripes, or solid white with silver thread.

Eckelmann said she crochets sweaters for her toy poodles, Ruby Lee and Jack.

"The dogs love to get dressed. They're quite used to it," Eckelmann said.

Helping animals in trouble is nothing new for Eckelmann.

"I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't have animals," Eckelmann said.

At one time, she owned three dogs that had all been, as she described it, "dumped."

"I don't know how, but they always manage to find their way to my house," Eckelmann said, noting that she lives in the middle of a wooded area.

Eckelmann's love of crocheting goes back perhaps at least as far as her love of dogs. She has been crocheting since age 13, she said. A seventh-grade teacher in her Brooklyn Catholic high school taught the girls to do handiwork while the boys played sports.

But even before that, Eckelmann said, her grandmother attempted to teach her crocheting as a toddler.

"It was amazing," Eckelmann recalled. "She took this thread, and look what she made! I wish my grandmother was alive to see some of the things I've done."