happy new year! (need a party hat?)

thank you antiqueclipart.com

for this super excellent freaky dog in a kilt

What I started out to do was find a picture of a dog in a party hat. That turned out to be a no, though I came this close to posting a cool "Lord of Misrule" type painting by the guy who did the "Dogs Playing Poker." (Cassius Coolidge, if you ever wanted to know.)

But I found this cute little Caledonian and thought he was a fun way to greet the coming year.

I also found a how-to page on making Dog Party Hats.

But this is all just a lead-up to saying,

Happy New Year my Museum friends!

I'm looking forward to finding more good stuff for you to enjoy in 2011.

Celebrate well and be very happy,

with all our feathered, finned and furred friends!

a jolly dog for decoration

attribution: By MOs810 (Own work) via Wikimedia Commons

Everything outside is white because we had an ice storm overnight. That's why this image attracts me this morning. I thought I'd find some artwork of dogs in the snow, but instead I found this cute fellow sculpted in white stone bas-relief, and he cheered me up. He's found at a building on Wyspianskiego Street, Poznan, in Poland. I wish I knew more about this relief: is it late 19th-c Arts and Crafts? (Could be, with those wacky acanthus-type leaves.) Is it a modern fake-medieval? Possible. Or earlier? But what really matters is how this chubby, stumpy little fellow seems so active and three-dimensional in his lush little rectangle.

Poznan sounds like a fun place, by the way.

you need your cat

I must have been living under a rock all these years. It completely escaped me that Ted Hughes (Poet Laureate of England; 1930-1998) wrote a number of cat poems. They are difficult to find online, but the bits I've found are sensible, sympathetic, likeable. I really didn't expect that, not from someone with such an amount of tragedy in his life (and Sylvia Plath - how tiresome to have that constantly color one's work). For example, right now nothing could be truer than the first few words of "The Cat":

You need your Cat.

When you slump down

All tired and flat

With too much town . . .

But I can't find precisely in which of his books this poem first appeared, though it's in the 2005 Ted Hughes: Collected Poems for Children. Perhaps 2002's The Cat and the Cuckoo?

Too many people

Telling you what

You just must do

And what you must not. . .

And I must tell you to visit here for the entire poem. Meanwhile, I need a cat.

on catnip

The girls got two new catnip toys for Chrismas, putting me in mind of this verse and accompanying illustration from Oliver Herford's Rubaiyat of a Persian Kitten (C. Scribner's Sons, 1904)...

'Twas that reviving Herb,
that Spicy Weed,
The Cat-Nip. Tho' tis good in
times of need,
Ah, feed upon it lightly, for
who knows
To what unlovely antics it may lead.

vintage photo time: merry christmas from the pet museum!

thanks again ampersand

You couldn't help it, you smiled. I know. Me too.

Notice how there's an axis of fabulosity drop dead center of this shot: the most lavish use of tinsel I have ever witnessed on a tree, a fine-looking young man, and a tousled brown Peke-ish doggie. Everything else in the shot is that beige domestic 50s/60s typical (if this was developed in 1964, this must be Christmas '63, and I can't date that couch to the left with pinpoint accuracy).

But that tree and those two?

There's generosity there: look at all that tinsel.

There's happiness there: that boy's open, friendly look, I want to think, comes from a cheerful spirit surrounded by a home to match.

And there's trust there: the dog is fine being gently held for the photo, but also wants to come see what the photographer is doing, and is sure of welcome either way.

What better way to say to all the Museum's friends,

Merry Christmas!

Thank you for coming by all year.

May you all be surrounded

by happiness and comfort for the season.

goldfleck the lion

On the grounds of the Hartsdale (New York) Pet Cemetery and Crematory ("America's First and Most Prestigious Pet Burial Grounds"), a white stone reads:

Beneath This Stone Is Buried The Beautiful Young Lion Goldfleck, Whose Death Is Sincerely Mourned By His Mistress Princess Lwoff-Parlaghy, New York, 1912.

I couldn't make these things up if I tried. Born Elisabeth von Parlaghy (she used her middle name) in Hungary, educated and trained in Budapest and Munich, Vilma's facility for executing portraits in a sensitive, realist style gained her prime clients, as well as a brief marriage at age 26 to the Russian Prince Lwoff. Though she didn't keep him long, she called herself the Princess Lwoff-Parlaghy for the rest of her life. Between her divorce and her fame as a painter, she did well enough to keep herself in high style, most notably in New York City's Plaza Hotel.

In fact the Plaza was home for Goldfleck during his brief life. The Princess spotted him as a cub at the Ringling Bros. Circus, but they wouldn't sell him to her, no matter how much she asked. As it turned out, though, they would happily give the cub to Civil War hero General Daniel E. Sickles, whose portrait the Princess had just painted, and who had specially asked him to run interference for her. General Sickles paid for the cub, gave him to Vilma as a gift, and she gratefully named him "Sickles" after his benefactor. It didn't stick. He was Goldfleck the rest of his days.

He died young, and the Hartsdale Pet Cemetery site has a lovely anecdote about the lying in state that the Princess gave her friend: surrounded by toys, food dishes and flowers.

Read the story of Goldfleck here.
Read about the Princess Vilma Lwoff-Parlaghy here, and I wish I could find more.

vintage photo time

thanks again ampersand

"Nov 93" reads the developer's mark on the back of this photo. Observe the mightiness of this cat in all his white fluff! So great is his might that A. the photographer could not fit in his ears and B. it takes a box that formerly held "12/12 Fl Oz 2 Can Packs" to (barely) contain him.

a wonderful portrait

Hans Maler [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I find this 1520 portrait of Queen Anne of Hungary and her dog (what sort of dog could that be?) very appealing. Though I'm sure the gown and hat she sports are of her time and status, the exaggeration of the textile and that fabulous hat with its whyisTHATthere jewel off to the side are to my modern eyes playful, even surrealist. And look at the collar her little friend wears. Very nice - well, you'd expect nothing less. Here's something interesting: though the painter of this, Hans Maler zu Schwaz, usually chose not to include hands in his portrait busts, he's done so here. Of course he did, if he was going to include the dog. Yet see how some feeling sneaks through the stiff, iconic gesture: the palm over the dog's chest, the thumbs almost entirely circling him, the dog raring to go.

Lovely. To learn a little about this lady, also known as Anna Jagellonica, go here.

the yule goat

You know, all this time I had thought those straw goat Christmas ornaments were solely seasonal toys, because goats are fun and Scandinavian countries like goats and reindeer and what not. I never imagined they might mean more - but I was wrong.


I have discovered the Scandinavian tradition of the Yule Goat.


Over the centuries this animal has served as a pagan sacrifice, as a children's bogeyman (bogeygoat?), as Christmas-preparation cop, and and in the 19th century as giver of gifts. These days the Yule Goat pops up as huge straw sculptures in town centers, the best known of these being the Swedish Gavle Goat (named for the ad executive who came up with the idea in 1966). Pranksters have a bad tendency to burn these down, but perhaps they won't this year since there is a webcam trained upon Goat 2010. Go have a look at the town's other webpages on The Christmas Goat - they're fun.

more cat proverbs

Has the black cat passed from between us? (Osmanli, or the Ottoman Empire - Turkish). That is, have we had a quarrel?

Every day is no' Yule-day; cast the cat a castock. (Scotch) Be generous at Christmas, even unto giving your guests the needless extras - a castock is a cabbage-core (what, your cat likes those?)

"Why, man, have you got up into the tamarind tree?" He replied, "To pluck grass for my kitten." (Tamil). That is, it's none of your business.

The three most pleasant things: A cat's kittens, a goat's kid, and a young woman. (Irish)

When the cat lies on its brain, it is going to rain. (English) Brain = back, actually.

-- From Curiosities in Proverbs (1916), an old favorite here at the Museum

a dachshund pulls rank

Charles Kingsley, the Victorian clergyman and novelist best known these days for his book The Water Babies, was said to be a man of generous heart - not least towards his pets. A journal article published after his death offers glimpses of his love for these creatures in all their varying characters.

Particularly colorful is the account of Victor, whose attitude would not fly in these days of class equality:

Victor was another dearly beloved pet of the great author. He was a dachshund of the royal breed, for he was given to Kingsley by Queen Victoria herself from her own kennel. He was "five inches high and a yard long when he was grown," says his mistress. "And he acted like a spoiled child and ruled the house. He insisted on sleeping in my bedroom, and if he was put out his shrieks roused the house. He had very aristocratic tastes. No power on earth could make him go down by the back stairs. and if the maids invited him to the kitchen he would leave them to go down their own way, and running round by the front stairs. would meet them at the kitchen door.

-- from "Pets of a Great Man," in The Sabbath Recorder (Vol. 83 no. 1, July 2 1917), pp. 470-71.

a 15th century dog collar

public domain thanks wikimedia commons

Pisanello (Italian; 1st half of the 15th century) had the ability to portray the high elegance of his time with grace and clarity. Look at this, for example: I could call it a study of a dog's head with collar/muzzle, every rivet and stitch there on the headpiece to copy if we wanted to make another. I choose to call it a portrait instead (and yes, that's a woman's portrait visible from the other side), for Pisanello has caught the creature's resigned head tilt, the eye beginning to droop closed: why do I have to stand here? why do I have to have this muzzle on?

quickie post, reporting awesome cat name

Here at the Museum you know we are huge fans of the excellent cat name - so I want to send you without delay to LoveMeow today, where you will meet a gray kitten rescued from 4 lanes of traffic and given the name...wait for it -

#ccc

(it's coding for a shade of gray)

vintage photo time

another ampersand find

I don't know thing one about this shot, only that I love it.

good toy: a raspberry kat

I first spotted them at the Ballard Farmers' Market: sitting comfortably among fellow plushy critters were a handful of pleasingly proportioned cats. Or "kats." The booth's owner, Wendy Norrell, loves to make soft toys, and her online shop AdorableSeattle gives a tiny taste of that. She also creates bunnies, monkeys, and some pretty spectacular toy salmon.

But I have to say, the kats are my favorite. From their perfectly curved ears to their cloverleaf 3-toed feet, the kats just invite contemplation and cuddling. They are jolly to hold, harmonious to behold and cute no matter what you do with them.

I got my niece one for her birthday, so here's an AdorableSeattle kat in action. This is a great example of cats inspiring a fun, well-designed, hip toy (they're made of new fleece from recycled plastic bottles!).

jet of iada

He was razor-keen, alert, and a good Liverpudlian to have on your side. He was a shiny black Alsatian named Jet of Iada, and his search training freed 150 Londoners from the rubble of the Blitz in WWII. If you were still alive, he would give his all to find you.

This page from the Liverpool Museums tells you a bit more about this little-known four-legged war hero, who won a Dickin Medal for his rescues and rests now in a nice park in his home town of Liverpool. As his owner's daughter recalls it, "My mother (kennel owner Mrs. Babcock Cleaver) had been in touch with Liverpool City Council to ask what they could do? Whether the park would give him a site because Calderstones Park meant so much to her, and everything was set in motion. It was a very very satisfying day, sad, but satisfying, because he was a special person." (emphasis mine - Curator)

She speaks of a few more memories of this brave fellow, and you can read those here. Plus there is a treasure trove of information on Jet at this site,which is written by another Cleaver family member. Wonderful.