Greetings everyone!

When I was planning to launch The Odd Dog, I decided to use Backerkit because it's the only crowdfunding platform that allows you to collaborate with another creator.

I immediately knew I wanted to collaborate with fellow author Katie Lockwood as she launched a campaign to create a plush stuffed animal of her main character, Rose the Owl.

Her book, Why Me, Mama is a beautiful story about Rose the Owl being afraid to invite other animals to her party because she's different. As she invites her woodland friends, she discovers they have differences too and are happy to be included. Katie is passionate about providing authentic and empowering disability representation for children and her plush characters are an extension of that mission. She plans to create plushies for each character in the story to provide comfort and cuddles to little ones who frequently spend time in the hospital due to their diagnosis. 

In the last few days of her campaign, Katie is trying to donate seventy-five plushies to children with rare Moebius syndrome (her daughter Rose's diagnosis) and needs 25 more donations to meet that goal.  If you'd like to give a plush to a child in need, you can do so here. 

PLUS-- When you support both The Odd Dog and Rose the Owl Plush, you get bonus rewards from BOTH of our campaigns!

As always, I am so, so grateful for your support of The Odd Dog. If you can, I hope you will consider pledging to Katie's campaign as well.

Thank you all, and stay tuned for more updates!

Sincerely,

Leia B

What an exciting turn of events for The Odd Dog!! Thanks to friends, family, and well-wishers, the campaign has reached its funding goal with a few days to spare!

If you pledged for a custom reward like getting your dog illustrated into the book, I'll be getting information from you about your dog. There are two places your dog can be an extra in the book

A Dog Park-- this page will expand out so it's a whopping 40 inches!

OR a Cool Pool Scene

So Leia (you might be asking yourself)-- does this mean you can take it easy this weekend?

I COULD, but nope! There are a few special projects that I'd LOVE to announce, but I want to reach a few milestones first.

If we reach $5,500, 100 backers, or $6,000, I have a few great ideas I'd love to share with you.

If we don't reach these goals, that's cool, but if we do I promise that everyone who has pledged so far will benefit! Maybe it's a special drawing, maybe it's a cool reward, we'll just see!

I'm thrilled to be taking part in the opening of a new library in my hometown, so we'll see if that event can take us over the edge, but if you'll share out at least one more time, I KNOW we can meet these stretch goals.

Thanks, as always, for your support and for making this project a reality. You are appreciated I am incredibly grateful!

Have a wonderful day,

Leia B

Greetings everyone! We are 92% funded with six days to go! This is definitely doable ($302 left to meet the goal) but I do have to warn you that funding is all or nothing on a campaign like this. That means that I lose all funds if I don't hit the goal by the deadline on June 17th 

If you're willing, it would be tremendously helpful if you'd share the campaign on Facebook. If you want to up your game, tagging a few friends with young kids and/or dog lovers can also help! They make it pretty easy to share. Simply click the 'Share' button in the top right corner of the main project screen, found here. 



You've done so much, and I'm so grateful. If you can help spread the word, I know we'll make it!

Sincerely grateful,

Leia

PS-- if you know someone who doesn't have children but they're interested in the project, suggest they pledge at the "Give the Odd Dog" level. I'll donate a book to a child in need with some nice extras that make it unique and special for them!

I'm so excited to announce that we've reached 50 backers! That means everyone wins. :) 

I'm going to give everyone who has pledged so far an extra reward as my way of saying thanks.

Check out my newest poll to vote on what I should offer!

Thank you, as always, for your incredible support!

Sincerely,

Leia

Good evening everyone!

 As always, I am so, so grateful for the incredible support received during this campaign. Friends, family, and well wishers have helped us get to 83.95% of our goal!

We are at 49 backers, something I wasn't sure I would achieve. To celebrate, I will be offering something special once we reach 50 backers. No, it won't be something special for the 50th backer, because what fun would that be? It'll be something special for all 50 of you who believed in this project.

To ensure we get there NOW, please consider sharing the campaign out if you haven't done so already. Even if you have-- most people need to see something a few times because.. well.. we're all super busy. :)

BTW-- if you have not done so yet, you REALLY need to check out The Oddest Dog Photo Contest. We have nearly 100 entries (!) and all of them are just amazing. The deadline to enter is June 7th, with the winner being announced on June 17th. There's a nice prize for the winner, including getting their dog illustrated into the book. 

Before I sign off, thank you again for believing in me and this project. I am so touched you have taken a chance on an Odd Dog. I'll be showing you some of the early illustrations in the next few days, so stay tuned!