I Lost My Dog. Then I Built This.

By September 15 2024, Cyrus’s body was failing in a way that no longer poses the question of maybe he has more time? The night before, he lay his face in a growing puddle of drool. Cyrus drooling was not a peculiarity; he was a dog who would eat himself to death if I let him. But this was different, he was dying. I lay next to him, recording his breaths, knowing that it’d be the last time I hear them. 

In the months after, I did what anyone would do when they lost their best companion. I tried to hold on. I painted him, felted a miniature version of him, wrapped myself in a blanket printed with his face, filled my apartment with his photos.

None of it nor all of it combined felt enough. 

By the end of the year, I enrolled in a silversmithing class. I wasn’t thinking about jewelry; I was thinking about permanence.

The first piece of jewelry I made was pendant cut from his paw print. Then, a ring with two tiny bezel-set tiger-eyes for his eye brows. Somewhere in there, I looked for ready-made pieces that felt worthy of who I became because of him. I didn’t find any, so I kept making. 

One piece changed everything. I’d hand forged a ring inspired by his essence—strips of sterling silver bent to form what look like sound waves, with the strip closest to the band folding over to meet it where a tube-set cubic zirconia sat, symbolising the many evenings Cyrus lay on my chest as we watched TV. 

The ring begged a question: what if every dog had this? Not a generic symbol. Not a paw print. Something that captures what it actually feels like to love them. Every dog shapes their person in a specific way, and they cluster, repeat, echo across people who have loved the same kind of dog. 

Corgi owners talk about chaos and mischief. Doberman people talk about intensity and protection. Labrador lovers talk about joy and devotion. 

I started talking to these people on breed-specific subreddits. I asked them to describe their dogs, what was special about them, what they loved, what stayed with them. Patterns emerged, not in how these dogs look, but in how they made their people feel. 

Choosing only seven breeds to start the collection was a hard decision. There are countless breeds, countless variations of love. These seven gave my idea a form I could actually make real. Each piece was sculpted to reflect not just the dog, but the prominent feeling of them, whether it is their posture, energy, or feature that their people recognise instantly. 

The Precious Dog started with grief. But what it evolved to be is about who we become because of them, the way a dog gets so far inside you that they’re part of how you move through the world. 

Cyrus is still shaping who I am. Only now I wear it too.