About Us
Mission Statement
Dogbotz Boneyard is an online resale website that focuses on providing its customers with collectible items, natural and sustainable goods, repurposed and recycled products as well as fair trade and hand-crafted wares and primitive and contemporary artwork. The mission of Dogbotz Boneyard is:
- To select carefully the high-quality items for each product category: Artwork, Home Goods, Metalwork, Playthings, Tribal, Wearables, and Et Cetera.
- To serve as a retail venue for recycled, repurposed, sustainable, fair trade and collectible products for the continued well-being of Earth Mother and all her inhabitants.
- To educate and inform customers truthfully about the origin, maker and condition of each item, if known.
- To solicit customer feedback to improve presentation of goods, to modify product categories, and to provide excellent customer service.
- To provide charitable support to animal rescue shelters and wildlife rehabilitation centers in the communities that we serve.
We aim to make Dogbotz Boneyard your favorite site for finding "buried treasures" to decorate your home or office or to add to your own personal collection.
Remember that, though Dogbotz Boneyard is headquartered in metro Chicago, we serve the entire United States.
Concept Creation
The faces behind Dogbotz Boneyard are both human and canine. Dan Hartmann and Patrick Price are the human co-owners of the online resale business, but their Catahoula leopard hound companion Comet (a.k.a. "Digger Dog") is the canine inspiration for the creation of this website.
An artist by education and a designer of architectural interiors by trade, Dan Hartmann is a dynamic yet sensitive force who has always sought to bring the natural elements, patterns, colors, and textures of Earth Mother to his work and home life. A lover of the outdoors, Dan is a naturalist, often following the path less traveled by others. He enjoys camping, hiking, fishing, and canoeing. Dan has decorated the home he shares with his life partner, Patrick Price, with primitive salt-glazed jugs and jars, ceramic crocks, wooden duck decoys, other decorative, primitive pieces along with Arts and Crafts-style furniture. Nurturing and caring, Dan has shared his life journey with numerous rescue dogs. Gardening and design are two of his great passions. His personal vision is to live a life of integrity and for the common good of all by maintaining a sustainable lifestyle.
Patrick Price's life is as varied as the product categories provided by Dogbotz Boneyard. Along the different paths of his journey, Patrick has served as a high-school foreign language teacher (French and Spanish), science-fiction and fantasy magazine editor (Amazing Stories and Dragon magazines), owner of a desktop publishing company (Dancing Crow Studios), lecturer of Native American culture (his paternal ancestry comes from the Ojibwa nation), and professional fundraiser for charitable organizations. Yet, regardless of the demands of his work, Patrick has maintained a deep appreciation and knowledge of literature, artwork, tribal traditions and craftwork, and the healing power of gemstones and the other natural voices of Earth Mother. These are the passions he brings to Dogbotz Boneyard, along with a wonderful fine art and costume and tribal jewelry collection.
Comet is a
Catahoula leopard hound that Dan and Patrick adopted from a dear friend who
owns a pet portraiture photography business and runs a small animal rescue
center. Comet had blessed the lives of Dan and Patrick with companionship,
loyalty, playfulness, unconditional love, and a whole lot of holes in their
back yard, which earned him the nickname "Digger Dog." In fact, it is
the partially pitted back yard of Dan and Patrick's home that serves as the
inspiration for the "boneyard" of the Dogbotz Boneyard website. And,
where in reality Dan and Patrick might find the bones, old socks, balls, soda
cans and other toys buried by Comet in their yard, so you, once in this
Internet fantasy boneyard, are free to unearth the treasures that Comet has buried
there.
Charitable Support
As stated in our mission statement, we at Dogbotz Boneyard believe in being a good citizen to the communities our business serves. As longtime companions to the many rescue dogs that have shared our life journeys, our specific charitable goal for Dogbotz Boneyard is to promote the care of Earth Mother and her creatures.
For the upcoming months, Dogbotz Boneyard has selected to support the Warrior Dog Foundation. The Warrior Dog Foundation was established by Mike Ritland who fought as a Navy SEAL in Operation Iraqi Freedom and other deployments. The foundation is dedicated to serving the special operations K-9 community. The SOF K-9s deployed with these forces are of the top tier in the working-dog world. They are expected to perform in the most austere of environments and face conditions that most human beings cannot survive. The SOF K-9 units are vital in ensuring the success of every mission, and foundation staff and volunteers strive to educate the public on the importance of SOF K-9s in combat, showcase the level of sacrifice these dogs give in support of our troops and rehabilitate them with the goal to rehome.
Once these Warriors have completed their service and, for whatever reason, are unable to continue on with their handler, the Warrior Dog Foundation helps to transition these K-9 heroes from an operational environment into its state-of-the-art kennel facility. The foundation then ensures the care of each individual SOF K-9 with dignity and grace, including both mental and physical rehabilitation for the rest of their lives.
To learn more about this charitable organization, please visit its website http://warriordogfoundation.org/. So, please join us at Dogbotz Boneyard in supporting the Warrior Dog Foundation through your purchases on our website.
We donate a portion of our monthly profits to a pre-selected community-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in the United States that addresses animal welfare, wildlife rehabilitation or environmental issues and that has an annual budget of $2,000,000 or less. Please note that we do not support national organizations such as the ASPCA or Sierra Club or the regional or local chapters of such organizations. If you are involved as a volunteer, donor, or staff or board member of a charitable organization that meets the above-mentioned criteria, please feel free to complete the Dogbotz Boneyard Charitable Support Application and submit it to us via e-mail at info@dogbotz.com. Be sure to put the words "Charitable Support Application" in the Subject line of your e-mail. We will review your application and connect with the charity you have identified, and if your charity of choice is selected, we will notify you.