A gift for my partner - making her dog in timber

In January my partner Jess and I celebrated our five year anniversary.
While we are enjoying living in London, we both (understandably) miss a few things from home. One of these things that Jess misses is her dog, Chloe.

As a gift for this occassion, I wanted to make something sentimental - we already buy enough chocolates as it is!

I was initially inspired by the popular 3D bandsaw reindeer, however after hours of CAD I still couldn’t make it resemble a dog using cuts in only three dimensions.
It was soon the day before the anniversary, and I had to get it moving.

I finished the 2D profile, before heading to my local workshop. I found some suitable timber, printed the design on A4 paper, and glued it to the wood. After some time setting up, and ensuring the bandsaw blade had adequate tension, I cut the mini-Chloe out based on the pupper-profile.

The initial block of timber was far too thick, making Chloe resemble the Michelin man.
I passed it through the bandsaw using the fence, taking thin offcuts until I got to a width I was happy with (this had the added benefit of making multiple chloe cutouts!)
Finally I sanded the surfaces and edges, and added varnish as a surface finish.

The next day when I gave it to Jess, she was totally surprised and, more importantly, very happy with her miniature Chloe.

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