I’ve carved dozens of these little dogs–perhaps more than a hundred. I know they’re not high art, but I enjoy them. Some people play Solitaire or Bejeweled, watch TV, or sit around drinking beer and talking with friends. I whittle.

You’d think that after carving so many of these I’d “have it down.” But whereas most carvers work primarily with kiln dried basswood, where every piece of wood is almost identical to every other, I tend to work with “found wood.” This piece, for example, is from an apricot limb. The dot between the dog’s ears is the pith, and the tail is a smaller limb that was growing off of this one. The blemish on the nose is part of a worm hole that I didn’t discover until the piece was half finished. I wasn’t about to throw the thing away just because I found a little rotten wood.

Working with found wood is challenging because every piece is unique. This apricot, for example, had been sitting out in the weather for quite a while after it was cut. It has a lot of bugs in it, some soft spots, and some very hard spots. I cook each piece in the oven for a couple of hours to kill any bugs. The apricot cuts very nicely, and is somewhat forgiving if I cut against the grain.

I’ve carved these dogs from more than a dozen different woods, including basswood, mesquite, walnut, mahogany, fig, cherry, pear, maple, ambrosia maple, sumac, oak, apricot, poplar, lyptus, elm, cedar, sycamore, and a few “mystery sticks” that I’ve picked up along the way. Every type of wood, and sometimes different limbs of the same type, has a unique character that presents its own challenges.

If you work in found wood, there’s almost never a shortage of material. Unless I’m stuck in an office building somewhere, I can almost certainly find a tree limb that’s about an inch thick. That and a knife is all I need. In an hour or so, I’ll have a little dog carving.

Another benefit of working in found wood is that I don’t have to paint the dogs. The natural wood grain provides much better coloring than I’ve ever been able to obtain with paint. Besides, I dislike painting.

Some people have asked me why I don’t sand the pieces to remove fuzzies or tool marks. I’ve sanded some of them to remove the fuzzy bits, but often when I carve one of these all I have is the knife. Sandpaper is another thing I’d have to carry around. And I’d never sand one perfectly smooth. The tool marks add character.

I keep saying that I’m going to make a step-by-step picture tutorial about carving these little things. I’ve started a few, but I always get involved with the carving and forget to pause to take pictures. One of these days. Really.