We lost our 15-year-old Jack Russell Terrier, Rabbit, to heart cancer in 2018. Our family, including our then 9-year-old late labradoodle, Choco, went through a tough time grieving over her death.

My family and I asked ourselves – why don’t we carry our love for Rabbit forward to one of the puppies out there who needs a home? We started visiting dog shelters. After a few weeks of searching, we met Cappi, then called Ellen. And Jelly. And Siu Fa ("little flower").

Cappi was found by Animal Friends (a local animal-rescue charity in Hong Kong) at a junkyard in the countryside. She was one of a litter of 11, sure to spend an unloved life on the edges of the city, like so many strays in this city. The charity re-homed the kids and desexed the mother to stop this cycle.

We fell in love with chubby Cappi (now 33kg!) right away. Cappi brings lots of good energy into our house, after months of “darkness” when Rabbit was ill. We still miss Rabbit each and every day. But Cappi’s puppyhood reminded us this is the cycle of life. Old souls go and new souls come.

The coming of Cappi meant we needed a new dog tag for her to wear on her collar. We know puppies are puppies, and are not always good at following “the pack”!

So I designed the first dog tag of my design career, ever, for Cappi! Of course I had to be fair, so I made one for Choco, too! For my kids, I made them bag tags for school. Yes, I am very fair!🤣

This is how Bashtags™ came about, from loss and the love we find.

We opened our first shop on Etsy in 2018. Having made more than 5,000 sales, we decided to create our very own online shop in order to build a more personal relationship with our customers.

Jessie Yip McMillan
Founder