A Pit Bull in Paso

We are frequent travelers to Paso Robles where we enjoy the wine and Jackson, our Pit Bull enjoys chasing vultures and digging for gophers. As any vulture savvy dog knows, a ball in mouth adds a menacing tone to a growl that is helpful in pursuing elusive buzzards.

With ball clenched in his jaw Jackson shakes his head aggressively as turkey vultures cast their shadows tauntingly over the terrain. As Jackson lacks the power of flight,the buzzards survive his attempted assaults, and some must surely be amused. With a wingspan of 6’ turkey vultures cast  impressive shadows over the rolling hills and oaks of the Paso landscape.

When digging for gophers a ball is of little use, but a wide snout, closed eyes and thick nails are helpful.

These pursuits while obviously gratifying leave Jackson exhausted, and we often see him splayed out in a death like pose fast asleep but twitching as he dreams of his exploits.

Those familiar with this blog  have been introduced to Jackson who is now 4 years old and to his sister Iris who passed at the grand age of 13. Iris was a legendary dog, and her features were the inspiration for our Pit Bull collection of doorknobs, dog leash hooks and door knockers. The Pit-bull doorknob below is available as a functional doorknob set or for closet use as a single fixed knob.

If your canine friend is a Boxer, German Shepherd, Labrador or Bull Dog or if you’re the proud owner of a cat then you need look no further for that  perfect door accessory.

English Bulldog Journey

 It is official we are now starting to make our dog and cat door accessories available for purchase online. Until now we have  eschewed direct online sales as we are a small company without  departments devoted to these tasks. By virtue of being small we cannot make large quantities of products, preferring to maintain a high level of quality by making only a small quantity of pieces. We are taking our first steps with the English Bulldog that can be purchased as a leash hook, door pull, single knob or door knocker all of which are easily installed using the basic tools and by following our installation guide.

 The Bulldog, also known as the English Bulldog or British Bulldog, is a dog breed that Martin Pierce grew up with. Martin’s dog, Sugar, was very typical of this breed being  hefty, muscular and with a somewhat squashed nose and wrinkled face. The breed is a descendant of the larger mastiffs which are said to have been introduced to England by the Romans. Whatever their ancestry this is one of my favorite breeds and feel their expressive jowls and wrinkles are well captured in Martin’s bronze sculptures.

At present the doorknob set can only be purchased by contacting us by email or phone as we need to ensure the set is correctly installed by a professional and the correct type of latch is supplied. While the simple tubular latch is easy  to install and is included in the door set customers will first need to check that their door stile is wide enough for the 3” backplate and assess whether their existing knob set has a square or rounded edge faceplate.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

When developing our line of Dog Knobs, one of the breeds we chose was the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, although not the most popular of breeds, we had one lovely example named Iris who we dearly loved. Iris has since past and now we have another Staffy called Jackson who is a very young, very strong and a very vocal young male. When we were contemplating a second Pit Bull, we spent time meeting rescue dogs to see if Iris would share her home with one and Jackson was her choice. Had we not spent the time checking both dogs for compatibility we may well have repeated a mistake made years before when we foolishly asked our resident Vizsla to share her home with a second Vizsla. While that particular canine bond was always a sensitive one, Jackson and iris got on fabulously and indeed Iris’s longevity and mental acuity we ascribe to Jackson’s puppy playfulness.

While Iris’s markings and ears  were very different to multi-colored perky eared Jackson, they both share the same head shape and extremely powerful jaw with soft and gentle muzzle and disposition.

 We understand that every dog owner loves their particular companion’s characteristics so for those of you with poodles, boxers, French bull dogs Golden retrievers, Labradors or German Shepherds, rest assured we have leash hooks and door knockers available for these breeds.

Happy July 4th

We are celebrating the 4th with a long weekend and hope you are able to do the same. Ours will be spent comforting our older dog Iris, who like many dogs finds the noise of fireworks nerve racking. This year she is a little more fortunate as one of the advantages to her mature years is her diminished hearing and with a lot of ambient grey noise from electrical appliances we hope she will not hear the booms from city’s fireworks. For all the dog owners out there we wish you and your dogs a safe stress-free holiday.

To see other dog and cat themed door knobs visit our dog and cat pages.

Boxer dog door knobs

Having officially launched our new collection of dog themed door hardware we wanted to share some of the background behind each dog breed.

We have four boxer dogs in our neighborhood with wonderful names, 2 are named Tank and Pistol, they are difficult to tell apart which given they are brothers is not too surprising. The other 2 are rescue boxers named Doctor and Dolly. Dr is a white boxer named after the well- known British show “Dr. Who” the other is named Dolly and as you probably guessed is a nod to Dolly Parton. My neighbor is a long- term fan of boxers and all his dogs have come from Boxer Rescue Los Angeles, a non-profit rescue center funded solely by private donations with a fully staffed kennel facility in the San Fernando Valley.

The creative end result of our neighborhood boxers  is a boxer head door knob set. The door knob exists as a functioning passageway set or can be used as a fixed door knob. The boxer head is also available as a simple door pull, or coat hook or as front door knocker. So far we have 8 breeds of dog but have 2 more on the design board which we hope to add by the end of this year or early part of next year.

All of the dog door knobs are made with the same eye for detail as our other lines of door hardware and made the same way using the lost wax method to create intricately detailed castings.

New Developments Dog Door Knobs

New Developments – Dog Door Knobs

This year we will be launching an unusual collection of door knobs inspired by our dog Iris and by other canines plus a few cats.

In 2014 Martin sculpted a life size portrait of Iris, our much-loved Pitbull. The portrait took several months to complete, and it is one of the few pieces that we value as a wood sculpture and have no plans to portray Iris as a full-scale bronze. Many of our friends and neighbors are dog owners and the idea of creating a series of dog handles began to take shape.

For details on how Martin sculpted Iris

Martin began the series by sketching some of the common breeds we see on our daily Iris walks. We live in Beachwood Canyon, a neighborhood in Los Angeles that has a lot of dog lovers so finding suitable subjects was easy but deciding on which to include was not. We also have friends who are equally smitten by their cats so decided to include a few cats.

The new collection when launched will include 8 dog and 4 cat breeds. I use the word breed very loosely as the aim of the series is to represent the general head characteristics associated with each breed as artistically interpreted by Martin. The collection in deference to their numbers and good looks will also include a fluffy mutt of unknown lineage.  

The dog and cat collections will be available as functional door knob sets, door knockers, or as clothing or leash hooks and door pulls.