Domino (top) & Dash

Domino (top) & Dash

Monday, January 30, 2012

SuperDog by Domino and Dash,mini & toy poodles respectively



   We dogs feel a lot of pressure to live up to the Superdogs our human families have once known and loved.  In our case, that would be Daisy Mae, the bichon frise, damn her.


    We pass reminders of Daisy in almost every room of the house.  There she sits, center stage on the side table gloating in a silver frame engraved with her initials.  Her old collar dangles meaningfully from a hook in the hallway. And who’s that again in the photo wedged into the corner of the mirror?   By now the photo’s finally fading. (Thank God.)

    It’s very touching that Daisy was so beloved.  But we get it, already. If we must suffer from sibling rivalry,let it at least be with someone who's still alive.  

    We’ve noticed that humans have a penchant for exaggeration, or maybe it’s just our Mother.  So the current story she spins about Daisy, six years after her demise, is that Daisy was trilingual in Latin based languages, with an extensive vocabulary and understanding of sophisticated sentence structure that, Mother says, no other dog known to man, has ever had the capacity to master.

    Apparently Daisy was also telepathic, not only accurately sensing when Mother was sad or worried, but anticipating her divorce years before she even considered having one.

    I’m sure history will continue to be rewritten and soon we’ll hear about how Daisy rescued stranded motorists in a snowstorm, as if she were a modern day Lassie. (Although everybody knows that even Lassie wasn’t Lassie, and in fact had a body double.)

    Well, I suppose we should be happy.  At least our family hasn’t erected some kind of public monument in Daisy’s honor, like other people did in St. Petersburg.  Rumor has it that there's a permanent art glasswork exhibition in that city, at a place called, if we're not mistaken, the Chihuahua Museum.  Is that not excessive?


  Pity the poor poodle or pug that wound up in that family afterwards.



Editor's note: D & D mistakenly refer to St. Petersburg, Florida's Chihuly Collection (featuring Dale Chihuly's glass art ) as the Chihuahua Museum. They are rather single minded.

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Thursday, January 19, 2012

Double Standards by Dash, the toy poodle



    Mother visited her friend’s house last night. Since then, all I’ve heard is “Gage did this” and “Gage did that” about the dog that was living over there. What kind of name is Gage for a jack russell terrier?  For that matter, what kind of name is any name except Perro Loco for a jack russell terrier?

     Apparently Gage is adorable with a lovely white triangle of fur on top of his head.  And although he’s 11, he still runs wildly through the house with childlike abandon (clearly ill-mannered, not sporty as Mother calls him). 

     Blinded by some lapse of judgment, Mother thought he was incredibly cute, despite the fact that he had “trouble” meeting new people and got a bit growly.  She felt for him because his former owners had mistreated him.  Oh give me a break!  The dog’s 11; he’s just working it.  Like we all don’t have a sad story to tell? 

      If I make even one unpleasant yip, Mother looks at me as if I jumped on the kitchen counter and stole a bite of the delicious chocolate cake she was saving for dinner, but it smelled too good to resist, so I had to have some, and boy, was it tasty, but then the whole thing fell on the floor and it was all ruined.  Not that I would ever do such a thoughtless thing, I’m just saying if I get yippy, she’d look at me as if I had.

     How can she get so mad at me for an occasional whine yet be all soft and woozy for a growling stranger?  And why does my ball playing bother her so much if she thoroughly enjoyed Gage’s obsession, which was, from what I’ve heard about that night, his ongoing attempt to steal the bacon wrapped figs stuffed with goat cheese from the coffee table?

     I’ve spoken about this with my brother, Domino; but he said that I have to learn to accept that life is filled with disappointment and double standards.  This is why I don’t talk to him.

     Then he seized that moment to go down a list of examples where he had found me as insensitive as our Mother.  What a spotlight shifter!  

    Between my delusional mother and Diva Bro', who do I turn to when I want to be understood?  It's not like I have a lot of options around here.  And then everyone wants to know why I prefer to spend my time with a tennis ball??

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Primo Hair, C'est Moi by Domino, the mini poodle


Apparently I have ‘primo’ hair.  I know this because when Mother came to pick me up after my haircut at the dog salon, Karen, the groomer cried out “This perky poodle has primo hair.  He should be in a show ring with that mop. Why ever were we cutting it so short?”  Why ever, indeed.

This oversight really makes me wonder about my family’s priorities.  I know how out of the way both my mother and grandmother go to keep their blonde hair (natural or otherwise) looking its best.  I hear them say that everyone in our family gets equal treatment; but after Karen’s comments, that’s beginning to appear a bit disingenuous, isn’t it?  Facts are facts. It now seems clear that they just had Karen trim me in the most efficient way possible and my curls be damned..

Not to throw my Mother’s own words in her face to make my point, but when confronted with an issue, not in her area of expertise, she always says “What am I an expert in this field? Ask a professional. How should I know?”

Well, if that’s the criteria, then it turns out I do have ‘primo’ hair and, as such, deserve special treatment.  It’s not as if I’m being spoiled asking for this recognition; to be honest, it’s not really even about my hair.  I’d just like to be able to believe in my family one again.

My trust has wavered ever since they told me that poodles were their favorite breed but then I found out that Mother has dog allergies. So perhaps the fact that I have primo hair was valued after all; but who wants to be loved because they don't make people sneeze?

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