silky smooth dog

Not digging the dog hair everywhere? Why not get a Peruvian Inca Orchid Dog? Then you can do as the ancient Incans were said to do --

A popular story tells how the Incan nobility prized the light colored Inca
Orchid dogs and kept them inside in orchid filled rooms during the day to
protect them from the sun. At night the dogs were allowed to run under the light
of the moon... the moonflower dogs...

They are kind of a cool bluish-gray color like some orchids. But maybe you'd rather have a Xoloitzcuintli, a Chinese Crested, or an American Hairless. Just think of the tiny outfits. Or not.

Choose your skin-puppy after perusing this site!

"how i became dog portraitist"

Cyrille Jubert discovered watercolor at the age of 42, after retiring early from a precursor of the dot.com economy in France. Almost by accident he discovered he had a talent for animal portraits, specially dogs; he was doodling on letters he was writing to friends, using his children's felt tip markers, and got 18 calls in one day about how great they were and why didn't he become an artist.

Sounds sketchy? (Ha, pun intended.)

As it happens, he's got a really decent sense of humor about it all - and he can paint and draw beautifully, as you'll see when you visit his Dog Museum!

the rabbits could smell him a half a mile off

. . . or so they attest about the unscrupulous Mr. Tod (a fox) in Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Mr. Tod.

I've posted about Miss Potter before. However, you may not have seen this page on her keen observations of natural history and how she worked them into her charming books.

Though I don't think dormice actually say "very snug". They probably think it as they shnooze the dark winter days away. Smart dormice.

hail bast!

A poem to the Egyptian cat-headed goddess Bast:

Mau Bast! Mau Bast! A Basti, per em setat, erta-na chu em asui neter sentra
semu hena net'emmit, hetep ab em asui tau heqt.

Your ancient Egyptian is a bit sketchy, you say? Here you go.

Hail Bast! Hail Bast! Hail Bast, coming forth from the secret place, may there
be given to me splendor in the place of incense, herbs, and love-joys, peace of
heart in the place of bread and beer.

I think I like Bast a lot.
I found the poem at this Bast website.

you otter not take this seriously

(Groan. Yeah, I know, but it was so there.)

Skillwise, otters impress: swimming is a given, but swimming whilst lazily lying
on one's back, smashing a sea urchin open against a rock balanced on one's
little otter tummy is a big draw. Perhaps the greatest skill of the otter is
that of merchandising, as the likeness of the otter is to be found on a vast
collection of teatowels, magnets and other related countryside themed goods.

Oh, and they squeak, too. So the gang over at Animal Reviews is overwhelmingly of the opinion that the otter would make a good pet. Which, for the record, it wouldn't. It's wild and needs water, lots of water, water all over your bathroom floor for frolic and playtime. Plus, I challenge you to find sea urchins at Petco for the feedin'. And the smell!

But I could let Animal Reviews talk me into thinking of one for a while. . . and maybe a stoat . . . or a handy, pragmatic vulture.

soviet kitten

Lev Alexandrovich Bruni (1894, Novgorod -1948, Moscow) wasa Russian artist who also spent a year's study in France in 1912. This wasn't unusual then. The Russian and French cultures had elements in common, and some borrowed French words still make up the Russian vocabulary.

In 1915-16 he became familiar with the Russian avant-garde circle that included Tatlin. Though he tried his hand at the color and space constructions many of this circle were composing, I really feel he was at his truest when he worked with immediate, bold color and expression.

Take a look at 1920's A Girl with Kittens and see if you don't agree. Look at how she holds the squirmy little guys; note the look on the momcat's face, knowing the human won't hurt them, but better keep an eye out anyway.

Not convinced? Try his Woman with a Hound, same year.

freedom to own a dog

What would you think if the mere fact that you owned a dog made you suspicious to the authorities?

Paul Fierlinger was in that very situation in Stalinist Czechoslovakia in the 50s. At that time, only peasants -- country people -- had dogs to protect property. He lived in the city and had a dog anyway; it probably didn't help that he named the dog Roosevelt.

He was angry and trapped, and acted out in ways that made him easy to spot: his paintings were more expressionistic than "properly realistic," and he grew a beard. Roosevelt, though, taught him a few things about how to really take down the system -- look like you're obedient on the surface, and then do what you really want.

Paul made it to the United States in the late 60's. He could have all the dogs he liked then, and he could draw them any way he pleased, which became the genesis of the PBS special Still Life with Animated Dogs.

how to paint a kitten

TET, a south Australian artist, heard about a kitten rescue and was inspired to paint. You can see the mechanics of how white space becomes cuddled kit in this YouTube snippet.

mah birthday

That's what it is today, mah birthday. And Rick's. Hi Rick! And my grandpa's too, but sadly for me he is no longer with us. When I was a little girl he made me feel like we were the only people in the world with this birthday. Which is terribly indulgent of the innate selfishness of the young, but you see, he was the kind of man who didn't mind that at all.

I miss him every day, but a little more today.

The people we love should live forever, shouldn't they? Rhetorical question. But how long will your favorite pet type person live? Let's see. . .

An Australian cattle dog named Bluey, who died in 1939 at age 29, is thought to have been the world's oldest dog.

Oldest cats - well, you get into a welter of conflicting claims there, but thirty-ish isn't unheard of by a long shot. See this page for a lot of old kitties.

The oldest living rabbit, according to the Guinness Book of World Records is "Sniffles." This dwarf rabbit was born in February 1991. But I can't find any follow up, and that's looking iffy.

Ferrets live up to about 10 years, though reports of 15 have been heard.

Don't even get into birds - oh, too late:
Finches - 15 years Canaries - 15 years Budgies - 15 years Cockatiels - 20 years Lovebirds - 20 years Conures - 30 years Amazons - 50 years African Greys - 50 years Cockatoos - 65 years Macaws - 60 years Doves and Pigeons - 20 years

And with that, I'm off to party.

hooray for gracie

. . . who found a new home with a co-worker's mom!

"gracie"

That's just what we're calling her here in the office. We don't know what her name is.

Whomever did, dumped her in the forest in Steilacoom, WA where one of us found her standing next to the freeway watching the cars go by. She was covered with fleas and had never seen the dentist in her life. Her microchip said someplace in Hawaii, but that was years ago.

Now she's all clean and lovely and as sweet as can be. All she needs is a home somewhere in SW WA. She loves everybody and everything -- wouldn't you love her?

PS: When will I ever run out of these heartwrenching stories?

great pointed archer

The immediate goal of this website is to replace the offensive name ‘rat’ with
the untainted, and beautiful name Great Pointed Archer. By doing away with this
all-too-common slur, we can begin to repair centuries of disrespect and hatred.
After all, it’s not their fault they live in the sewer and eat trash.

They can jump 48 inches in one leap. Their fur smells like grape soda. There's between 8 to 12 million of them in NYC.

Maybe we should pay them a little more respect.

And that's certainly the point at The Great Pointed Archer, a tongue-in-cheek and comprehensive site to rethinking the rat. Not for dial-up, I think, as it's so graphics-heavy that even I took a while to bring it up (though the loading pages are pretty funny, too). Be sure and try customizing a GPA (click on the 4th poster on the wall, you'll see what I mean).

still fighting 'em!

No post today; fleas galore.

Yuck.

i should join the circus

The flea circus. It's a bad year for fleas - or, if you're a flea, it's a banner year. In any case the disgusting little sods are everywhere, and the least they can do is provide me with the grist for a post.

Or at least with some entertainment.

Flea circuses were advertised as early as 1833 in England, and persisted as a carnival attraction until around 1930 here in America as well. The Aztecs made sculptures of fleas, but didn't devise any circuses. To be fair, sometimes the "flea" circuses were actually things being directed about with magnets, and it's not like people were going to get up really close to look. But yet most circuses of this moniker truly did have fleas, and there were tricks aplenty to make them look like they were doing things. Tiny balls would be anointed with camphor, which fleas don't like. They would kick the camphor-y balls away: voila! juggling, or playing soccer!

Plenty flea lore here. Enjoy, but spare a thought for me if you will.

dog cemetery au francais

(Is that how you spell it? I never took French.)

Matt Jones is a freelance animation artist working in France. This means he sees some quite interesting things we wouldn't necessarily see over here. So he blogs about them, using his powers of illustration for a fresh take on things.

Good stuff.

So here is his visit to Le cimetière animalier d'Asnières.

canine freestyle

Also known as "dog dancing", but not if you're a professional.

It's been around for about 15 years, has several organizations devoted to it, and you too can join if your dog will fill your dance card for you. (Did you see that episode of "King of the Hill" too?)

Canine freestyle involves training, communication and choreography between the human and the dog. You can get an inkling of what is involved when you visit, say, the Canine Freestyle Federation. You can find classes, get training, even go to the retreat held every two years.

A couple of years ago Emily Yoffe at Slate tried the sport with her dog.

And you can see some on YouTube.

a little token of my appreciation

Well, I tried to paste the nifty e-card I made at the Boston MFA here in all its glory, but you'll have to go adventuring for it --

From: curator
To: The Pet Museum gang
Message: This 19th century lavastone brooch from the Boston MFA expresses a little of my gratitude for alla youse -- as the Ramones would say -- that stop by daily. Thanks for your affection (the little putti, or angel baby) and your fidelity (the dog)!

Your friendly curator

Link to full record on http://www.mfa.org/collections/search_art.asp?recview=true&id=116186

my first lolcat

. . .starring (who else?) Elizabeth.

dog down under

Australia is a fascinating and often harsh place. Think how it must have been for its first European colonizers. So much so that in 1930, Miles Dunphy made a set of tiny leather boots for his dog Dextre to protect his pads on long bushwalks.

These little boots are now at the National Museum of Australia, where they illustrate people's interactions with the environment in this nation's very particular set of circumstances.

and another egyptian cat

Yes, I do have a thing for those long-ago heirs of Bast. (I type this surrounded by three of them. One is on the monitor; I keep having to push up a flap of her to see the command menu.)

You must agree that the ancient Egyptians had some of the surest feel for these creatures in the history of man's creativity. I say this as I gaze at a photo of one of the Louvre's smaller treasures: the bronze top of a "divine standard" or ceremonial staff, portraying a mother cat and her kittens. One of the kittens has gotten up on its hind legs to paw her nose.

What a jewel.

Read the Louvre website's catalog information and stylistic commentary here (in English - I can't read the French site either).

dog and cat scrapbook

Tyler, I do not know you, but if your online scrapbook choices at the Smithsonian's "myCollection" site are any indication, you have a good eye.

Tyler has availed himself of a new feature at the website of the Smithsonian's American Art Museum, where you may select works you like and save their images into a "scrapbook". His selection includes some sensitively modeled 19th-century heads of a cat and a dog by Paul Wayland Bartlett, a folk art Monkey Dog by Miles Burkholder Carpenter, and some works by Paul Manship. Why don't you have a look? Perhaps you'd like to start your own scrapbook.

cats that go down to the sea in ships

I know sailors like cats. Cats catch rats and mice that eat rations, and sailors think cats bring luck anyway. (Of course they do.)

I did not know that the most celebrated ship's cat of modern times was Simon, of the HMS Amethyst. Born in Hong Kong in 1947, Simon was found in his dockyard home by Seaman George Hickinbottom of the Amethyst. The black and white cat looked in need of a better home, so Hickinbottom smuggled him on board. Turns out there was a pressing need for a ratcatcher among the crew, so Simon stayed. He became best buds with the ship's captain, and was wounded in an attack on the Amethyst by Communist forces in 1949. When a particularly large and heinous rat, nicknamed "Mao Tse-Tung" by the crew, tyrannized the ship, Simon did battle and came out the winner.

Simon died in 1949, safe on British ground, after a short but lionized life. You should read all about him here.

royal copper

King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand is much beloved of his people. You can begin to understand why when you come across excerpts of his book, Biography of a Pet Dog: The Story of Tongdaeng.

Though purebred dogs are the thing to have in Thailand, Tongdaeng (the name means "copper", which is her color) is, simply, a street mutt. Possibly some Basenji, but who knows.

In the richly illustrated book, the King tells us about Tondaeng's humble origins, beauty, and intelligence. She may even have telepathy:

Apart from being clever and quick to understand, it seems that Tongdaeng has the
gift of telepathy, and can use it effectively. On many occasions, Tongdaeng's
children would run off to play far from His Majesty. As for Tongdaeng, she would
scout about in front of the King, then come back to him. On one occasion, when
the King thought that Tongdaeng's children had strayed too far away, he said
"Tongdaeng, go and fetch Tongmuan." (Tongdaeng's number three offsping)
Tongdaeng stood up and gazed out in that direction; in an instant, Tongmuan came
running back. It that had happened only once or twice, it could have been
construed as a coincidence, but it happened many times, not only with
Tongdaeng's children, but also with other dogs. Tongdaeng can use the power of
telepathy to call them back to His Majesty.

This really is a touching, lovely document. Obviously the King is possessed of great heart. Why not see Tongdaeng's qualities for yourself?

119 populated places named for dogs

At least that's what I get when I go to placenames.com and do an advanced search for "dog" in "type of place = populated places", USA only. (Today your dog, tomorrow the world.)

Places like Dogpatch, Alaska. Dog Town, California's Mono County. Dogway, Virginia. Ooh, don't you want to type in "ferret"? Or "tarantula"?

Unfortunately, the info goes not a heck of a lot further than that, so I cannot discover there how a town gets named in such a fashion. Anybody out there live in one of these?

lives and times of a store cat

Leave it to Portland's Powell's Books, the bookstore one city can barely hold.

There's the main store. Across town, Books for Cooks. Books in the burbs of Beaverton. And last but not least, the Technical Bookstore, home to Fup.

Fup was adopted from a shelter in 1988 and has been part of Technical since day one. She is the subject of a long-running series detailing her bookshopcat adventures. Truly, of all shop cats, she is the the best documented ever. As you'll see.

day after three day weekend

Back to the salt mines!

And here's what Elizabeth thinks of that.

Your friendly curator is enjoying a lovely cold, and so is reverting to the "picture = thousand words" excuse.

See you tomorrow!

william cowper, 1787

I must tell you a feat of my dog Beau. Walking by the river side, I observed some water-lilies floating at a little distance from the bank. They are a large white flower, with an orange-colored eye, very beautiful. I had a desire to gather one, and, having your long cane in my hand, by the help of it endeavored to bring one of them within my reach. But the attempt proved vain, and I walked forward. Beau had all the while observed me very attentively. Returning soon after toward the same place, I observed him plunge into the river, while I was about forty yards distant from him; and, when I had reached the spot, he swam to land with a lily in his mouth, which he came and laid at my foot.

-- Letter to Lady Hesketh, 1787, from Frank Jackson, Faithful Friends. William Cowper was an 18th century British poet in whose work nature is stirringly evoked.

louis wain

A couple of days ago I mentioned Louis Wain, the British artist who became famed as a cat painter - and sufferer of schizophrenia. There's two schools of thought on his art, I've just found: first, that his illness radically changed his approach to his subject matter; second, that he developed artistically as he would in any case, and the illness was secondary.

Even leaving aside the illness and institutionalization, his life was sad much of the time. Yet from his struggles he pulled what became some of the most engaging cat art of his time, or ever. All this is said and illustrated beautifully at the site

Catland

Be sure and read the interview with him (taken from a publication of the time). Note the part where the interviewer remembers watching five poor children, cold and hungry, get cheered up by the sight of a Wain cartoon in a barbershop window. Oh! my heart.

"because you love cats and movies"

And I do. Oh, I do. But I wasn't expecting this when I went to

Moviecat

Movie posters/ stills -- all with Photoshopped cat heads/paws where they oughta be.

Is there nothing, nothing cat people can't devise!?

PS: Extra points for catshopping The Philadelphia Story.