Tracy Wosaba was an only child, and like lots of only children, her best friends had four legs. There was Butterscotch Cinnamon Dean, her pup, and Sparkles Crystal Dean, her furball kitty. Also in the menagerie were a bunny, a duck and various fish.

In those days, Tracy dressed up Butterscotch Cinnamon for fun, but now the family pets are dressing up Tracy's clothes. She makes t-shirts, tanks and baby onesies decorated with endearing illustrations of her beloved pals.

When Marsha Sinetar wrote Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow, this must have been the kind of thing she was talking about (and she and I probably should have a chat about some of my own career choices!). Not that Sinetar was the last word — plenty of other people have said it, but she was one of the first to be so clear about that link.

Tracy had worked with humans for a long time in the hospitality industry, Human Resources and so on, but like many jobs, it became just that for her. It wasn't until she spent a weekend at the Chopra Center in July 2006 and started meditating twice daily that she had the courage to leave her steady paycheck behind and launch a business dear to her heart. As she tells it, once she got the idea for her adorable pet t-shirts, "All the ideas for the Spiritual Whimsy line began coming through. It was divine guidance."

She had no clue about merchandising, no background in clothing design, but just kept putting out to the universe, "This is what I need to do next, direct me to the right people." Somehow, she says, it always happened within a week.

Spiritual Whimsy was launched in July 07, and $2 from every item sold is donated to a charity like the Phoenix Children's Hospital Animal Assisted Therapy Program, or some other human-animal bonding organization.

Our pets give us so much unquestioning love and joy. In these days of big businesses crashing like dominoes, it's encouraging to see a small "Mom-and-Pup" business finding success and helping to make the world more hospitable to our most loyal companions.