Who is Shannon?
You can call me Shannon, but it’s not my name. In fact, there is no Shannon O’Reilly here. But I will get to that shortly.
I’ve been a rock lover and jewelry lover from an early age. My career path headed toward mathematics and statistics, but the love of rocks and jewelry remained.
I’ve also been an animal lover all my life. Even as a child I was drawn to their sweet souls, and at store checkouts I would add whatever coins I had collected to the Animal Support collection jars that were stationed by so many cash registers.
As an adult, cats were my first pets. I loved their independence and feigned indifference. One day I went to a pet supply store for cat food and there was a greyhound group there for a meet & greet. I walked up to these quiet gentle dogs and a huge boy leaned into me when I petted him. I couldn’t stop thinking about the breed; it was the first time I had met a greyhound. I did my research, and in 2000 I adopted my first greyhound. Her name was Shannon, and she was a big goofy girl. She had a long drippy nose, soulful eyes, and a slight overbite. She was perfect and I was instantly smitten!!!
It wasn’t long before I adopted another greyhound. And another. Well, you get the idea. Reilly was another one of my early greyhound adoptions. He was a beautiful and HUGE boy, and he was painfully shy. The process of working with Reilly, of him opening up and learning to trust me, was one of the most rewarding things I had ever been a part of.
Shannon O’Reilly Designs first began in 2009. It began as a way to incorporate my love of greyhounds and my love of jewelry. My company was named to honor the memory of Shannon & Reilly, who taught me so much about greyhounds. They have both passed on, but will live forever in my heart. So while I may not be Shannon O’Reilly, I don’t mind being referred to as Shannon one bit.
We currently share our home with our many greyhounds, our many cats, and there’s usually a foster greyhound here too.