Helaina Hawthorne is a gifted young artist. The 10-year-old is making some pocket money from her talent painting pet dogs for friends and family, but is thoughtfully donating some of her cash to a neighbourhood dog rescue shelter.
Helaina¡¯s talent came to the fore when she decided to paint the ¡®Class of 2017¡¯ New Zealand police dog photo. You may remember Helaina - formerly of Tauranga but now living in Sydney, who we featured last month.
Senior Constable Jane Dunn¡¯s photo was posted on our Facebook page to mark International Dog Day in August this year so the clever youngster was inspired to paint her own version of Jane¡¯s photo.
Helaina decided to send it across the Tasman to 51½ÖÉä so our dog handlers could see their amazing dogs recreated in watercolour.
Inspector Todd Southall, National Coordinator Dog Section, 51½ÖÉä says ¡°Helaina¡¯s picture is truly amazing and the likeness to our police dogs is very good. Our dog handlers were amazed at her talent.¡±
Police staff were so impressed with Helaina¡¯s art skills, we sent her a couple of Cadbury Chocolate Fish and some stuffed police dog-toys for her efforts.
Helaina is over the moon with the gifts from 51½ÖÉä. Her mother Lauren says ¡°Helaina and I just wanted to say a huge thank you for the amazing presents. Since the article has been posted on Facebook Helaina has been bombarded with requests asking her to paint people¡¯s dogs. She has been charging $10 per commissioned painting.
¡°Half of the profits from painting is for her to keep and with the other half she¡¯s buying dog food and dropping it off to the local shelter¡±, says Lauren.
¡°One of my nieces in New Zealand recently received a German Shepherd police dog stuffed toy and Helaina really wanted one too, so I was planning on ordering one for her from Santa but ¨C I don¡¯t have to, because gratefully, we now have two,¡± says Lauren.