happy halloween! & how to help

Hi Museum friends!  Things got too busy for me to prepare a proper post this morning, but I can't let one of my favorite days of the year go by without saying

Happy Halloween!

Have fun and stay safe, people and pets all.  Meanwhile, I am thinking of Museum friends back East in the path of the hurricane.  I want to help - I know you do also.  Here is a post from the White House's blog on the best ways to help Hurricane Sandy survivors.  And here's something from my local news station on helping pets too.

delacroix whips out a cat drawing

image and text in public domain

"Fac-simile of a drawing by Eugene Delacroix," reads the caption on this illustration, found in the 1885 edition of Champfleury's The Cat, Past and Present (this little guy is on page 36).  Delacroix is I'd say by far the best known French Romantic painter, an artist of color, drama, passion, exoticism.  He rather looked like a cat himself. (As a young man he was extraordinarily handsome.)  Champfleury says that Delacroix "made tigers of his cats," meaning he used them as bases for his grander paintings of tigers.  I can see some of that in the almost comic hauteur of this sketch.

the pocket beagle in history

Yesterday while the cats were busy doing my laundry for me (HAH), I wrote a short article.  I've thought for a while now that I should offer a sample of my articles for anyone to see and judge. So if you are interested, feel free to click on the page tab above, or click here, and read a little bit about the Pocket Beagle in History. Back to the usual type of Museum posts tomorrow!  Thanks for reading.

sunday morning wash with kat von d

With a walk-on part by Elizabeth.  Happy Sunday morning, everybody...I'm trying to write an article on the Pocket Beagle while all this is going on.

vintage photo time

ampersand, i think xxx

All I know about this one is that it was taken in June, some June somewhere in the sun.  Great hair on the kid, don't you think?

1710: mrs. ursula's pets out of control

Hell breaks loose.  From a paper on "Pets" presented at the Mechanics' Institution in 1859:

* * *

Let no lady carry the love of Pets to the disagreeable length which distinguished a certain Mrs. Ursula, mentioned in the Tatler about 1710. A quiet gentleman pays her a visit, and finds her, in his own expressive words, "environed by four of the most mischievous animals that can infest a family — an old shock dog with one eye, a monkey chained to one side of the chimney, a great gray squirrel to the other, and a parrot waddling about the room with his toes turned in. The lady was seized with a fit of coughing; this awoke Shock, and in a trice the whole room was in an uproar. 

"The dog barked, the squirrel squealed, the monkey chattered, the parrot screamed, and Mrs. Ursula, in her attempts to stem the Babel, was more clamorous than all the rest. At length quiet was restored, a chair was drawn for me, where I was no sooner seated but the parrot fixed his horny beak, as sharp as a pair of shears, in one of my heels, just above my shoe. 

"I sprang from my chair with unusual agility, and so being within the monkey's reach, he snatches off my new bob-wig, and throws it upon two apples that were roasting by a sullen sea-coal fire. I was nimble enough to save it from any further damage than singeing the foretop. The lady apologised, but in the middle of her harangue I felt something scratching near my knee, and, feeling what it should be, found the squirrel had got into my coat pocket. As I endeavoured to remove him from his burrow, he made his teeth meet through the fleshy part of my forefinger." The unfortunate man ends his story by saying that as he was abruptly taking his leave, and hobbling down stairs in heedless haste, he set his foot full in a pail of water, and down they both came to the bottom of the stairs, and there we will leave him.

* * *

Egerton Leigh, "Pets - A Paper" ("Dedicated to all who do not spell pets - Pests"), (London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1859), pp, 26-7.

too long for one page: a herford dachshund

image and text in public domain

"The Dachshund is the Longest Dog

In the whole Canine Catalog.

He is so Long - to show him Here 

He must in Serial Parts appear."

And that's exactly what our friend Oliver Herford (of The Rubaiyat of a Persian Kitten, which we've seen before) proceeds to do:  offer a four-part fable of how the Dachshund went from standing tall and proud  in the Garden of Eden to scurrying about low-slung.  Each part has a hunk of dachs to match - including the illustration consisting of nothing but the fine tail.  This is part #2.

You can see each and every bit in Herford's More Animals (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901), pps. 85-99.

bud hangs out the window, 1903

Say you are a well-off young doctor visiting San Francisco from your native Vermont in May of 1903.  You're looking for a thrill, and you rather like these newfangled automobiles, even though most people think they're a passing fad.  You don't own one, you've hardly ever driven one, and there's no AAA to help you, young man. What of it?  You buy a car, you hire a mechanic to come along, and you head up the Sacramento Valley and the Oregon Trail, destination back home to Vermont.
You know what this is missing?  A dog.  Luckily for us, Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson felt the same way, and picked up a white pitbull outside Caldwell, Idaho.  It seems he paid $15 for him, which in 1903 bucks was some sizable investment.  Dr. Jackson named him Bud Nelson, got him a pair of doggy goggles (don't forget, the whole car was open in 1903), and the rest is history.  History that I never knew till this morning, but Ken Burns has gotten there and made the movie ahead of me.  Have a look!
Spoiler:  Bud lived with the Jackson family happily ever after; Dr. Jackson got busted once for speeding - over the 6 mph limit.

paul klee likes a temporary cat

Paul Klee (1879-1940) was attached to pretty much any and every school or artist you've heard of from turn of the 20th century Germany: member of the Blue Rider, buddy of Kandinsky's, taught at the Bauhaus.  His theoretical writings are rock basic reading for any student of modern art. Sounds intimidating, huh?  But the other thing you need to know about Klee is that he was a world unto himself, and capable of great, selfless nurture and affection.  Case in point: his cats.  He had several, adored them, and strangely enough never seems to have referred to them as "pets." To him they were beings of equal importance to himself.  You should read his diaries sometime.  Here's a snippet from his time in Italy, when his lodgings came complete with mouse removal:

"Today they took my cat away from me and I had to look on while it disappeared in a sack. I understood at last what words had not succeeded in making clear to me. It was a cat that had been borrowed to catch mice for a period of time. And I had already given away my heart."

The Diaries of Paul Klee 1898-1918 (Felix Klee, Paul Klee: University of California Press, 1964), p. 74

what's to see? it's kat von d

This morning we're doing a spot of housecleaning.  We have a lot of help as you see.

Then it's cuddle time for good Kats (she has a bit of a chapped lip due to food bowl sensitivity, but she's lots better now).

spammed!

Oh dear, it looks like I need to put the word verification back on - I just had 2 dozen spams on one post today.  I wish I didn't have to, and I hope you'll still comment, Museum friends!

vintage photo time

i can't remember now where I bought this!

Fall is most definitely here in the Pacific Northwest.  It happened over the course of a week, seems like, and now I'm going to miss hanging out the window for about six and a half months.  By the way, what a gorgeous collie.

puppy stranded off the coast of kent, rescued by paddleboarder!

Speaking of the "lives and times" of our pets, I really want to share this video I found on Life With Dogs about a puppy having a very bad time and getting his life saved.  Seems a gentleman named Charlie Head was paddleboarding along the coast of Kent when he came across a little clump of rocks far out in the water.  To his horror, he saw a little brown dog stranded there - well, thanks to his headcam, you can see the rest.

Paddleboarder to the rescue!

mr. walpole gets condolences on his cat

In which Thomas Gray writes a letter of kitty condolence to his good friend Horace Walpole, though he admits he doesn't know exactly which cat it is that has ceased to be.

LETTER XVII.
MR. GRAY TO MR. WALPOLE.
Cambridge, March 1,1747. As one ought to be particularly careful to avoid blunders in a compliment of condolence, it would be a sensible satisfaction to me (before I testify my sorrow, and the sincere part I take in your misfortune) to know for certain, who it is I lament. I knew Zara and Selima (Selima, was it? or Fatima?) or rather I knew them both together; for I cannot justly say which was which. Then as to your handsome cat, the name you distinguish her by, I am no less at a loss, as well knowing one's handsome cat is always the cat one likes best; or, if one be alive and the other dead, it is usually the latter that is the handsomest. Besides, if the point were never so clear, I hope you do not think me so ill-bred or so imprudent as to forfeit all my interest in the survivor: Oh no! I would rather seem to mistake, and imagine to be sure it most be the tabby one that had met with this sad accident. Till this affair is a little better determined, you will excuse me if I do not begin to cry. . .

From Elegant epistles: a copious selection of instructive, moral, and entertaining letters, vol. 5, V. Knox, ed. (London: John Sharpe, n.d.), p. 175.

a cat is a safe friend for an imperial toddler

public domain,thanks wikimedia commons

Ivan IV of Russia (1740-1764) had a short, sad life. Declared Emperor at ten weeks, deposed 13 months later, sent to an isolated imprisonment with a jailer when not even four years old due to a power grab by the Empress Elizabeth, he was finally murdered on the brink of freedom. (See all that here.)
I hate stories like this.  But you can see that for that one brief period in his infancy he had one portrait painted  showing him as blessed and wise beyond his years, indicative of the worshipful love the Russian people had for their Tsars.  I think I am right in saying Ivan's right hand is making a gesture of blessing.  No year-old child would normally do that - but they would and do grab pet cats by the ear. What an interesting mix this is of the iconic and the natural.  I hope he at least got to keep that cat a while.

the grateful cat

image in public domain

From lesson 11 of James Johonnot's Book of Cats and Dogs: and Other friends for Little Folks (American Book: 1884).  In which little kids learn that rat poison really hurts cats, and if you nurse a kitty through that, they will be grateful and bring you presents of mice - a more winsome tale than it sounds.  The whole book is full of top-quality late 19th-c engravings such as this.  Ah, that schoolbooks were still so tenderly illustrated.

sweet dog dreams, i guess!

i actually took this!

This is Briar, belly-up on the couch last night, deep in sweet, sweet doggy oblivion.  Elizabeth would walk by and headbutt him every so often, and not even that worked (he loves to lick her head).

So Happy Monday to you and I hope this gives you a smile.

spot a happy cat

"Spotted Cat" image copyright and by kindest courtesy of Liz Langley

San Diego artist Liz Langley writes, "I especially love color & pattern- in design, art and the everyday world. I  find it fascinating and wonderful and I'm so happy I get to work with it every day."  You can see that here in her "Spotted Cat," a print from her Etsy shop, Henri Hopper.  (Who's Henri Hopper?  Keep reading!)  Really I felt that this drawing distilled some of the cheeriest things about cats in my life:  the happy look of a cat knowing there is loving to be had for the asking, and the toy-like pleasure of looking over every spot and stripe (as I often do with my famously beautiful Elizabeth).
A little more on the artist:

Liz Langley has happily spent her time drawing and painting since she was able to hold a pencil and paintbrush. She is a graduate of New York University and San Diego Mesa College and has spent time much of her adult life traveling and living abroad, a fact which still inspires and influences much of her work. Born and raised in San Diego, she now lives on the beach there with her family and her muse, Henri Hopper the french bulldog. Keep up with current happenings and be first to see new works at: www.facebook.com/henrihopper.

french words on dogs: from an 18th-c dictionary

Everrer: to worm a dog
Entre chien & loup: in the dusk
Chienne de musique: villanous music
Faire le chien couchant: cringe
A vil prix: dog-cheap
Las comme au chien: dog-weary
Taudis: dog-hole

From The New Pocket Dictionary of the French and English Languages: In Two Parts : I French and English, II English and French : Containing All Words of General Use : and Authorised by the Best Writers, Fourth ed., Thomas Nugent, compiler (London: C. Dilly, 1784).

quick dog quote

"If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience." -- Woodrow Wilson

I happened across that this morning and thought it was too good (and true) not to share.  But there are a lot of other dog quotes here at BrainyQuotes.

"dear dogs" - a winsome letter

A couple of days ago I posted a poem from To your dog and to my dog, a collection from 1915.  Today I'd like to share with you the dedication, written to dogs everywhere.  Though its viewpoint is dated - I'd never be caught dead calling my dog my "slave," specially when it seems to be the other way round - its sincerity is worth the read.  I've edited it just a touch for brevity.
* * *
Dear Dogs:—

I have brought together in my library a few of the many proofs that show how true is the affection which many of your masters have for you, and some-time when I can read them to you privately, you will understand more fully the place you hold in our lives. I use the word MASTER only because our language is too poor to express in one word the real relationship which exists between us, we the master, and you the devoted slave and trusted servant, the most joyful of playfellows, and the best of companions, the bravest defender, and the truest friend. I wish I knew the word in your language which expresses all that you are to us. I also wish I knew how much you know, and could learn the many things you would gladly teach us.
You can see what we cannot see.
You can hear sounds we cannot hear.
You interpret signs we cannot read.

You scent the trails we cannot find.
You talk to us with your speaking eyes, and we cannot understand.

You are sometimes cruelly treated, and so are human beings, and sometimes we have to punish you for you are not always good. You have a certain amount of deviltry in your nature which we rather like, for it makes you more human and lovable. Your sins, however, are mostly against the laws we have made for you, not against your own, or those of nature, which are the laws of a higher power than ours—the one who made you.

What glorious times have we enjoyed together tramping or riding through the fields and woods, over the hills and by the streams and through the swamps, or at the sea, on the sands and rocks, or over the salt marshes, with gun or camera or botany box, or with nothing at all! We have shared the best the world can give us, nature's gifts. And returning home, tired and happy, we in the evening, before a bright wood fire, you close by our side or at our feet only so that you can touch us, have lived over what the day has given us. Or sometimes at night before a camp fire with the quiet of the wood sounds all about us, have dreamed of the ducks and the grouse and the partridges, or of rare flowers or a beautiful landscape which the past day has brought, or of what the next day will bring. And perhaps you have dreamed also, a little selfishly (you are only selfish in your dreams) of the rabbits and squirrels and the woodchucks which have been the greatest temptation for you to resist all day long. They must have existed long ago in your garden of Eden. . .

. . .You know us in many ways as no human being knows us, for every hour of your life you wish to be near, and often you are our most intimate companion and the best friend we have in the world. We talk to you, more than half believing, or trying to believe, that you understand, and I am not sure but that to you alone we always tell the absolute truth, we whisper to you our secrets, we confide to you our hopes and ambitions, we tell you of our successes and our disappointments, and often in deep grief you alone see what we think is weakness to show to the outside world. Whatever happens to us we are sure of one friend, even if the whole world is against us. We trust to you our greatest treasures, our children, and we know with you they are safe.

When you go to the Happy Hunting Ground you are truly and deeply mourned, and the great legacy you leave us is the memory of your loyalty, your devotion, your trust, and memory of the many happy hours and happy days you have given us in your too short life. And when we are obliged to say "the King is dead," we do not complete the old saying " long live the King " for many, many months—and sometimes never.

May we meet again.
     Your masters, and
          Your FRIENDS.

* * *

(Lincoln Newton Kinnicutt, ibid., pps. vii - xi.)

a dapper cat in a very fine hat

artwork copyright and by kindest permission of the artist

It's a 20"x30" poster of a "Cat in a Hat," poised and urbane against birds, fish, and happy cat faces.  This utterly delightful image is by New York City graphic designer and illustrator Andreas Ekberg.  When I asked him about his images, he wrote to say that his work starts as sketchbook doodles or in his iPad, adding "I started to draw and these are the kinds of things that come out."  And you know what, I think this cat is a perfect manifestation of some of the sheer joy you can find in NYC.  Seriously:  here's kind of a Gilded Age kitty gent waving in welcome against a wall full of innocent treats and smiles, full of energy and dreams of good things.  Yes, it's true New York is a place to be reckoned with, but I have also eaten ice cream on the steps of the Metropolitan, and waved at the dogs on the street and the cats in the windows, filled with my own energy and dreams.  (My dreams of the perfect future always have pets in them.)  This image made me remember those days with a happiness I didn't expect.  And now I wish you all birds and fish and good things.  Meanwhile go have a look at Andreas' website and Etsy shop.

tiger

Tigers are a tad off topic for a Pet Museum, since we can't have them for pets (no matter how much I would love that, in theory - curator).  However, I took advantage of a warm sunny October day to visit the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium and see how their little boy Sumatran tiger was doing.  He was asleep,  and very, very adorable, but the nursery enclosure's glass didn't make for good photos.  I did however get a good look at he whom I believe to be Dad Tiger flopping around and having a relaxed groom session.  Those gorgeous stripes!

an irish terrier named tim

W.M. Letts never doubted that his dog was headed for heaven.  Here's a celebration in (Irish-dialect tinged) verse of a scrappy dog's soul.

TIM, AN IRISH TERRIER

It's wonderful dogs they're breeding now:
Small as a flea or large as a cow;
But my old lad Tim he'll never be bet
By any dog that ever he met.
"Come on," says he, "for I'm not kilt yet."

No matter the size of the dog he'll meet,
Tim trails his coat the length o' the street.
D' ye mind his scars an' his ragged ear,
The like of a Dublin Fusilier?
He's a massacree dog that knows no fear.

But he'd stick to me till his latest breath;
An' he'd go with me to the gates of death.
He'd wait for a thousand years, maybe,
Scratching the door an' whining for me
If myself were inside in Purgatary.

So I laugh when I hear thim make it plain
That dogs and men never meet again.
For all their talk who'd listen to thim,
With the soul in the shining eyes of him?
Would God be wasting a dog like Tim?

-- from the delightfully named 1915 collection, To Your Dog and To My Dog (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin), collected by Lincoln Newton Kinnicutt.  You'll find this poem on page 39, and the opening essay to the dogs themselves is worth an upcoming post of its own.

the mighty schipperke

 From a 1907 book on toy dogs published by "Dogdom Publishing Company," here is a vivid sketch of a Schipperke's character.

* * *
The following, which appeared in "Chasse et Peche" in 1885 is so interesting and so truly characteristic of the Schip that I think it is well worth reproduction.
"The Schipperke or bargee's little dog. A little devil, black all over but without the cloven foot and minus a tail; such is the bargee's dog. A veritable demon after rats mice moles and anything he comes across. A tireless guard, he takes rest neither day nor night, and is always on the alert. Alive to all that is going on inside or outside the house, he allows nothing to escape his attention from the cellar to the garret, and should he remark anything amiss he acquaints his master of the fact in piercing barks. He knows the way of the house, interferes in everything going, and finishes by persuading himself that it is he who directs the whole. His fidelity to his master is unalterable, his kindness to the children more than tried, but ill luck to the stranger who has the rashness to lay his hand on anything or anybody. The Schipperke has teeth and knows how to use them.
One often meets him on the barges of the canals and rivers of Flanders. He does not make the deck dirty, or upset the things upon it with his tail - for the very good reason that he hasn't one.
A good stable dog, he is the great chum of the horses and has an excellent seat. His joy is to mount the towing-horse; it is then that he struts and barks at the passer-by; he would like to make them believe that it is he alone who gets the boat along.

- from Toy dogs: the history, points and standards of English toy spaniels, Japanese spaniels, pomeranians, toy terriers, pugs, pekinese, griffon bruxellois, maltese and Italian greyhounds, with instructive chapters on breeding, rearing, feeding, training and showing ; and valuable information and treatment in sickness, Lillian C. Raymond-Mallock (Battle Creek, Michigan: Dogdom Publishing Company), page 53.

"pony and dogs" - three gentle friends

image in public domain, thanks wikipaintings.org

British artist William Shayer the Elder was 72 when he painted this warm-hearted roundel of "Pony and Dogs" in 1860.  Though he exhibited in London at the Royal Society of British Artists and the British Institution, he was born and died in Southampton (1788-1879).  Since his chosen genre was rural scenes in a Romantic vein, it makes full sense to me he'd stay close to those roots, the better to observe such simple and immediate things as this quiet moment in a stable.

vintage photo time 30's, last but not least

one last round o' thanks to lily!

Yes, this is the last of the batch - and in these two photos Grandma Lily is picking out their terrier (you remember him).  See the "x" in the bottom photo? Right next to the one pup on top.