pocket beagle controversy

My brother wanted a pocket beagle to cuddle and he got one. . .

. . . or did he? While I was cursing my cellphone for not transmitting my photo of the little guy, I was busy searching for facts on this breed. (I multitask a lot.) Imagine my surprise to step into a controversy about who really breeds this tiny beagle and whether the breed really still exists!

Once upon a time it was very easy to find a pocket beagle if you were well-born. Even a smaller kind called a mitten or glove beagle. Here's Wikipedia on that:

From medieval times, beagle was used as a generic description for the smaller
hounds, though these dogs differed considerably from the modern breed. Miniature
breeds of beagle-type dogs were known from the times of Edward II and Henry VII, who both had packs of Glove Beagles, so named since they were small enough to fit on a glove, and Queen Elizabeth I kept a breed known as a Pocket Beagle, which stood 8 to 9 inches (20 to 23 cm) at the shoulder. Small enough to fit in a "pocket" or saddlebag, they rode along on the hunt. The larger hounds would run the prey to ground, then the hunters would release the small dogs to continue the chase through underbrush. Elizabeth I referred to the dogs as her singing beagles and often entertained guests at her royal table by letting her Pocket Beagles cavort amid
their plates and cups.

And here's Henry Anderson Bryden on these little guys in 1903, from his book Hare-hunting and Harriers:

Beagles of the present day vary a great deal. We have . . . the
original breed, and the little sharp rabbit beagle, used for hunting rabbits and
not for shooting purposes. This latter is the pocket beagle, standing no more
than ten inches at the shoulder. The Marquis of Linlithgow has a kennel of these
little creatures, which display extraordinary fire, spirit, and dash, and hunt
rabbits in most amusing fashion.

I'll see what I can do about getting my photo on here. But here's images of some. And here's my nephew's rendering of the yet unnamed fella:

kitty postcard from greece

Look at this postcard I received from a friend traveling in Greece! I like to think the fish was placed there by a kind local while the cat was sleeping.

urban legend kitties

You know, urban legends, those tall tales that "must be true" because it happened to a friend of a friend? Like the lady who found a weird-looking little chihuahua in Mexico, brought it home, took it to the vet, and found out it was a humongous rat?

Those stories.

There are dozens of them about cats. There's the dead kitty in a box that gets stolen, the cats that suck babies' breath (of course you knew that wasn't true), the giant housecats, the evil nature of tortoiseshell cats. As to that last, one of the Museum "staff" is a tortie and she's not evil at all. She's got the approximate mental acumen of a bag of hammers, but not a scrap of evil.

Messybeast.com has that long list of urban kitty legends. Some of it not nice at all, sadly, but most of it interesting and a look at what folks can be made to believe and easily too.

Read read read.

artist: l. kelly lyles

I came across this artist at Fremont's Solstice Festival this year. Her playful touch with puns and liking for other pets outside the cat-dog spectrum tickled me, and I snatched up her card thinking, "Post."

You'll see what I mean when you drop by her Rodents page, where you can see a duck family travel a new pond(?) in "Starducks," or "Benson & Hedgehog"'s winsome little spiky guy on the familiar cigarette pack. And then you get to "Hamsterdam." Then you can go to Pet Portraits and see some straight-up portraiture, still quirky and done with exuberant color.

Her main page here.

artist: melinda copper, pet masterpieces

As you all know, I do so love art and its history. The satisfaction of viewing great masterpieces is one of my life's great joys. What could be better?

Well, for the occasional smile, seeing them recreated with pets. Melinda Copper's done this about as deftly as my picky eye could hope - check out Botticelli's Birth of Venus kitty style, or dog "Poppins" as Elisabeth Vigee-LeBrun's selfportrait (here's the original. See what a good job?) How about bunny Moose as Caravaggio's Bacchus?

Terrific stuff and great choices from the Old Masters! Enjoy them all, here.

Oh and I went to Fremont Solstice Fair yesterday: so many PEOPLE, and so many dogs. Here's a happy pug watching the parade:

"a good dog is worth three men"

So it is apparently said of a valiant Florida Cow Dog, also known as the Florida Cur (lookit one here). Did you know Midwestern beef starts out as Floridian beef calves? They get transported to the Midwest to finish growing and become food. But while they're out there, the ranchers need smart tough dogs to manage them. Not a fancy dog at all, as this quote from an area cattleman might indicate:

“They just got kind of a little round lookin’ head on ‘em, kind of short-eared. Not like a bull dog. Kind of got short hair on ‘em. Some of ‘em is stub-tailed or bob-tailed. Some of ‘em is long-tailed. Some of ‘em is yellow lookin’ dogs with a black mouth. Some of ‘em’s black, you know, with a little yellow on ‘em. I’ve seen some brindle dogs, leopard dogs.”

This is from a short and informative article (I swiped the title for this post because it was swell). Read it and see photos here.

may 10 1910: rabbit vs. dog

A news item from that day in the New York Times:

A pet white rabbit, fleeing for its life, ran under the body of a moving trolley
car in Bloomfield Avenue, Montclair, yesterday. A collie dog in hot
pursuit tried to follow, and was ground to pieces under the rear trucks.
After the dog's death John Hendrickson, a storekeeper, picked up the rabit
(sic), exhausted.

That poor dog.

pet blessings

Did you see Ark Lady's comment a couple of days ago, pointing us to her site? Maybe not, so I will now. She's at Blessing of the Animals.com, where you can learn all about her book of the same name. Did you know they're having "bark mitzvahs" now? Ark Lady does. How about blowing to Oahu for a pet wedding? Been done. Go take a look at the book tidbits online!

Ark Lady is the nom du blog of animal and pet expert Diana L. Guerrero. Thanks for dropping by, Diana!

bubba

Bubba, a schnauzer/Yorkie mix, belongs to my dear friends Carolyn and Mike. The picture may fool you, but she's all girl. Do you not adore the biker outfit? Carolyn and Mike are writers, and as you all know, I don't know how one can write without a pet. Learn more about Bubba here.

P.S.: They also own Dudley. That is a rock he's got.

dad or pet? which makes you happier?

Dog lovers report being as attached to their pooches on a series of standard
relationship measures as they are to their mothers, siblings and significant
others, and even closer to them than to their fathers. The most striking results
came from those most attached to their pets, but even among a general sample of
111 college students living with dogs, people say they crave their dog's company
as much as some family members.

Uh - not what I expected to find this morning as I searched for a nice Father's Day post. However, in the interests of social and cultural inquiry, I'll go ahead and talk about the study Professor Larry Kurdek published this past April in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. Long story short, for lots of folks, pets aren't just family members, they're preferred family members. It's possible that people are more emotionally attached to their dogs than their dads because dogs are full of unconditional love, while fathers are not so often perceived that way. Other side of the coin: Middle-aged men often seem hardest hit when a pet is euthanized.

Story link here. Citation abstract here, just because. And my best wishes to dads everywhere.

gracie is a mastiff

Isn't she something? She belongs to one of my coworkers, who adopted her as a rescue. Can you tell how big she is? Huge. And with such a soft mink-like coat!

I went looking for an article on mastiffs to bring to you all. Look what I found: one that was originally published in 1920! An excerpt:

The word "Mastiff" is derived from the Latin massivius, meaning massive or
large, but at different times the names Tie-dog and Ban-dog have been applied to
the Mastiff'. At an early date they were undoubtedly used to guard flocks and
herds as well as homes. Later they were trained to fight bulls, bears, lions,
and other animals imported for that purpose. Three well-trained Mastiffs, it is
recorded, were considered a fair match for a bear, four for a lion. . .

squirrel history. brought to you by kelly cat!

Yay for Kelly Cat, who dropped me a line today with a great anecdote about the American journalist H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) and his wild squirrel pal. (Spoiler: heartwarming story but sad ending)

(Kelly Cat notes) This event took place during the last years of Mencken's life, after he was disabled by a stroke and a major heart attack.

One lazy afternoon, while Mencken was sitting in the garden, half asleep, a squirrel came over the wall, climbed up his leg, and perched on his shoulder. "He grew fond of the animal and could summon him by whistling and he had August (Mencken Jr., his younger brother) go out and buy a large bag of peanuts with the shells on," the journalist H. Allen Smith recounted. The squirrel became a steady visitor, coming from the park across the street to sit on Mencken's shoulder. A week or two went by with no sign of him and then Henry insisted that they cross the park and search for him. "He may be sick," said the man who was the scourge of the '20s. They went over and found the tree where the squirrel lived, and they scattered peanuts around. Now the squirrel started crossing the street to visit his friend again.

There came an afternoon when Henry and August were sitting out front; they saw the squirrel come out of park and start loping across Hollins Street. Suddenly an automobile swished by, killed the squirrel, and went on without slackening speed. Henry was livid with rage. He cried out against the driver of the car, insisting that the man hit the squirrel deliberately, calling him a murderer and worse, howling that the gallows would be too good for such a villain. "He got madder at that man," said August Mencken, "than he ever got at the Anti-Saloon League."

Found in Mencken: The American Iconoclast by Marion Elizabeth Rodgers (2005: Oxford University Press). Thanks tons, Kelly Cat. You're the best. Everybody go say so at It's All Good!

I like this pic of elizabeth

Here's little have-fang-will-travel, kicking back on Sunday AM at the foot of the bed. See how the curve of her ears echoes the curve of the ironwork scroll? That was a happy accident - I didn't mean it to happen.

By the way, the origin of the word "tabby" comes from the French word tabis, which seems to have derived from a similar word for wavy-looking watered silk. And that word seems to have come from a district of Baghdad where such silk was made: "(al-)ʿAttābīyah, quarter of Baghdad where the silk was first made, lit., the quarter of (Prince) ʿAttāb" (Dictionary.com, look up "tabby")

narcisse noir

Harry Crosby (1898-1929) threw off his patrician Boston background for Paris and the pursuit of glorious, mad, extravagant sensation, the better to make art of his life. I discovered Harry and his wife Caresse (he renamed her; she was originally Polly) in another of the New York Review of Books Classics series, Geoffrey Wolff's Black Sun: The Brief Transit and Violent Eclipse of Harry Crosby, originally published 1976.

There is not enough room here to give any tasty idea of how excessive his life, tastes, actions, and loves all were. He wrote poetry. He drank and drugged to excess. He had crosses tattooed on the soles of his feet, and fiercely worshipped the sun as a god. Was he crazy? No, but he wanted to be.

Thing is, even with all this, he and Caresse were very good to their black whippet, Narcisse Noir. Narcisse was a male, and had his share of nice collars and soft bedding; he would sit at the table upon a red cushion. I get the impression he may well have been better behaved than the humans round him.

Southern Illinois University Carbondale has Caresse Crosby's photograph collection, and here she is holding Narcisse Noir.

dogs by marjorie weiss

Against the clearest of skies the color of a late beach afternoon, on green lawns, the black dogs stand. Sometimes they have human company. Sometimes they're running free.

Rendered in silhouette, they could be dogs of any time - your childhood dog, the dog you don't have yet, the walk you took last Thursday. Marjorie Weiss's dogs are both that removed and that immediate in their absence of limiting detail.

She's also lately created a series of yellow dog pieces with more detail, but the same openness to interpretation. Why not go to her site and see this fresh and well-executed work?

"where hamsters would surf the net...if they could use a computer."

Ah, that would be hamsterific.com. This is pretty much the most comprehensive site I've ever seen about those little pursecheekers. (We recall the post a week or so ago about how much a hammie can fit in its face.)

For example, not until visiting Hamsterific University did I know there was such a thing as a Hairless Syrian Hamster, and oh boy, is it a comic looking thingy. (No kidding, no hair -- and female ones can't produce milk to feed babies. Isn't that odd.)

Want to proclaim the Way of the Hamster? Then you can get yourself a very cute Tao of Hamster T. That's right up there with the Cat Face with Bleach T in my book.

play a game! feed a pet!

You can do this at freekibble.com, where you'll be presented with a daily trivia question. Whether your answer is wrong or right, shelter dogs will get 10 pieces of kibble. Rather feed cats? Go to the sister site, freekibblecat.com.

Both sites are simply and brightly designed, fun to look at, easy to use. There most interesting thing about them? Both are the brainchild of a young girl in Bend, Oregon, who wanted to help bring good food to the dogs at her local animal shelter. She had the idea and did most of the sponsor-finding and masterminding all by herself (her parents, professional web designers, did that part).

Go now to freekibble.com or freekibblecat.com!

A big thank you to Doug for sending me the clipping from the Oregonian about this site.

internet pet blessings

I'm very pleased to have found the link I bring you today:

God, Bless the Animals

The site belongs to an internet prayer ministry that wishes to enhance the well-being of all creatures that share our Earth, which means there's lots of good stuff here for the caring pet person.

For example, on the "Instant Prayers" page, there's a full-fleshed prayer for many animal situations. Think on this excerpt from the prayer for homeless animals:

God, Bless the Animals...and especially those who have no homes and families of
their own tonight.Shelters and Rescue Centers are warm and safe but they are
also very impersonal. Domesticated animals need homes and people to love
who also love them.

I wish I'd known about this site months ago. Enjoy and should you need comfort, I hope you will find some here.

artist: kitty wales

Kitty Wales recreates the animals of our daily companionship from the refuse of our daily lives. Her sculptural installations, sometimes occupying an entire gallery room, engage as thoroughly as would the actual creature.
This is partially because she takes great care to study each chosen animal in its home territory; also partially because of her deft and skillful transformation of cast-off stuff into faithful anatomies. Her drawings are shots of a fully fashioned world, from which animals peer out with curiosity or go about their work.

See her installations - look particularly for "Dog Factory" and "Canis Ex Machina". Some individual animals here.

the indispensable pomeranian

I didn't know the little fluffy Pomeranian dog was called a "zwergspitz" in its native Germany. They're called Pomeranians because Queen Charlotte of Britain selected her Poms from the region of Germany known as Pomerania (now split between western Germany and eastern Poland).

Nor did I know that Michelangelo had one, or Martin Luther. Mozart wrote music for one. Learn about Pomeranians here. A little more here with pictures. Would somebody please tell me if they know which aria Mozart wrote for his dog? I feel so lame not being able to find it!

Later edit: Perhaps I can make up for the lame post by throwing in a link to this book on the Pomeranian, written in 1908 by "G.M. Hicks, M.A."

items from a french newspaper, 1906

I've been reading Novels in Three Lines, by the writer Felix Feneon (1861-1944). During 1906 the quiet, elegant Feneon worked as a journalist for the newspaper Le Matin, submitting pieces in which stories of local note were distilled to two or three short, punchy sentences. A very few had to do with animals and pets, of which my favorite (??) runs as follows:

In the vicinity of Noisy-sur-Ecole, M. Louis deLilliole, 70, dropped dead of
sunstroke. Quickly his dog Fido ate his head.

There's also

Because an automobile ran over his dog, a peasant from Dardilly, Rhone, shot at
another automobile. He got a year in jail, suspended.

Frachet, of Lyon, who had been bitten by a pug but had apparently recovered,
tried to bite his wife and died rabid.

Novels in Three Lines is one of the many, many excellent titles reissued in the New York Review Books classics series.