89-year-old Maisie Green is a self-professed dog lover.
The retiree from London, England, also happens to love knitting. While hand-crafting gifts for her friends and family is all fine and good, she recently realized she could do even more with her skills. That’s when she decided to combine her two passions and set out to do something absolutely wonderful for her local animal shelter.
A few years ago, the UK-based animal shelter, Dogs Trust Basildon, sent out a request to crafty locals.
“Nifty with needles or handy with a crochet hook? We’re calling all crafty types to contribute home-made dog coats for our Hope Project Christmas hampers,” the shelter wrote in a Facebook post .
Clearly, the initiative appealed to Maisie.
Since hearing the shelter’s call, the 89-year-old has used her knitting skills to benefit all the deserving pups awaiting their *furever* homes at the shelter.
As the shelter revealed in a December 2018 blog post , Maisie has lovingly spent the last three years knitting around 450 coats and blankets to help keep the shelter dogs warm and happy during the winter season.
In one Instagram post from the shelter, Maisie can be seen proudly posing in front of her latest batch of homemade donations, which are sure to make some wonderful doggos very happy and very cozy.
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Maisie explained that knitting all those wonderful creations is quite the labor of love, but it’s all worth it in the end.
“It takes me three days to knit a blanket and one day to knit a doggy coat,” she told the shelter . “It keeps me busy and often I like to knit whilst watching television. I’m delighted to be helping the four-legged residents at the center in some way.”
Various pictures on Instagram show the shelter dogs snuggling up inside Maisie’s beautiful creations.
Lisa Cooper, the manager of Dogs Trust Re-homing Center, said that Maisie regularly donates knitted gifts to the shelter.
“With the chill of the winter months really starting to creep up on us I know our dogs are very pleased to put the items to good use – and love feeling extra cozy,” she said .
Maisie said she also receives some help from her family to get the coats and blankets made in time for winter.
Her goal is to regularly donate more than a dozen homemade goods for the deserving pups, and suffice it to say, they definitely seem like they appreciate their cozy new blankets.
Dogs Trust Basildon shelter is one of the U.K.’s largest dog rescue organizations.
According to its website , it provides to care to over 16,000 dogs in need every year across its 18 re-homing centers.
The shelter encourages donations and even offers people the chance to sponsor deserving dogs in need. For more information, check out the Dogs Trust website .
