Last night in bed, Victoria decided to get my attention by poking me in the left eye. It worked.

Boy, howdy, that was (and remains) painful! I'm sure there's a lesson in this somewhere, but I just can't see it right now. Tonight I'll be sleeping in safety glasses.

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Poodle Philosophy 101: Part 2

Good girls know that two heads are better than one when it comes to bird watching.

Bird chasing, on the other paw, is every poodle for herself.

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Poodle Philosophy 101: Part 1

Victoria always takes the opportunity to smell the roses. And squirrels.

July bites off only as much as she can chew. In this mouthful.

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Victoria was taken aback on a recent walk through the cemetery when she noticed this Confederate flag and marker for Dr. North. "Dr. North working for the South? Preposterous!" Ah, poodles. Will they never cease being amazed by the peculiar foibles of humanity?

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My dogs have had a fight. Now they won't stay in the same room with one another. Victoria seems properly apologetic, but July still growls at her whenever she comes within 5 feet. Most surprising about this is the discovery that July can hold a grudge for longer than 24 hours, though I suspect that she may be milking the situation for a little extra attention. If this is anything like raising children, I'll have no part in that, thank you.

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New for 2010: Easter poodles! The adorability of a bunny combined with the fun of decorating eggs!

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It was recently brought to my attention that England is considering legislation requiring all potential dog owners to pass a test, microchip their dog, and buy insurance in case their dog attacked someone. In theory, this plan would prevent the implementation of mobile collection and euthanasia vehicles such as have been recently employed in parts of Japan in order to restrain out-of-control wild and dangerous dog populations. After all, who could imagine a scenario where someone would abandon their animal after having paid a substantial sum to acquire it, even if that someone had lost their job in a shrinking economy after having overpaid for a vastly overvalued animal in the first place? Come on, it's not like a dog is a house.

How to solve the problem of wild, dangerous dogs is the sort of problem that would only face a government that had already banned gun ownership. Now that guns don't kill people, dogs kill people. With no threat of weapons to keep them in check, the loose dogs have formed nature's equivalent of motorcycle gangs, resorting to wandering from town to town fighting other gangs tooth-and-claw over territory, eating from trashcans, and raping all the uptight bitches. In America, we'd shoot our beloved Old Yeller if he looked at us cross-eyed, but the Brits are searching for a gentler way.

I for one applaud the idea. Owning a dog is like owning a car, and users must be qualified lest they plow through a crowd of innocent pedestrians. Better yet, using the tried-and-true, infallible "slippery slope" argument, it is clear that this action will inevitably lead to the obvious conclusion: qualifying people for parenthood. For far too long, society has allowed the bumper sticker slogan "anyone can be a father" to dictate public policy. I say that it's about time that government qualified what, exactly, that "special" quality is that makes someone a "daddy."

I suggest we follow the format of the British dog law: all prospective parents should pass a written test and buy "child insurance" in case the child one day gets lose from its restraints and bites someone. Once a child is born, we'll microchip them, mainly to prevent child insurance fraud. After all, if it's good enough for dogs, it's good enough for people.

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I've been dog sitting for my father's poodle puppy, Rambo, and it turns out that his puppy is better behaved than mine. Victoria, my full grown poodle, is determined to catch one of dad's cats or hens, which makes every trip into the yard a struggle. So far, the score is Victoria 2, Hens 0 -- that's hens caught, not hens killed (Victoria has a poodle's typically soft mouth) -- before I could separate the combatants. Meanwhile, Victoria has her own cheering section as Rambo patiently stands at the top of the deck and barks his gleeful approval. He may be better behaved, but that doesn't mean that he's helping.

[UPDATE]: This blog post requires that I include the following picture of Rambo to illustrate just how vicious he is. You may want to shield the eyes of your impressionable children before scrolling down.

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Tis the season for poodles.

My aunt gifted me two rescued standard poodles this week. The black bitch is named July and is quite a playful handful. The light apricot bitch is named Victoria and is skittish and reserved. They came as a pair, previously owned by a woman who became unable to care for them following an injury. Despite the fact that they are both adults (2+ years old), they've kept me very, very busy.

Meanwhile, my father bought a new standard poodle puppy descended from a line including show champions. Though at this point the puppy remains unnamed, I'm sure that it can't help but do well considering that it's dam was named for Joanna Cameron's title character in television's The Secrets of Isis.

[UPDATE: For the record, Victoria isn't an apricot. She's just a really, really dirty white. Silly girl.]

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In honor of Pope Victor (who first decided that Easter would be celebrated on a Sunday), I interrupt your Day of the Lepus celebration with the following long-form complaint about chicks.

Why does Victoria's Secret mail out catalogues every month? Who buys underwear that often? A quick web search reveals that they mail over 400 million catalogues each year. (A mere 33 million catalogues per month.) The population of the entire United States of America -- men, women, and children combined -- is slightly over 300 million.

I'm a little torn on this issue: I'm not opposed to free porn arriving in my mail box. (That old Sears catalogue and I had some good times.) But I do have concerns about the frequency and volume of these catalogues. I see more Victoria's Secret catalogues than credit card applications and "have you seen me" postcards combined.

I'm not the sort to lament the overgrowth of landfills (I hope everyone drowns in their own filth) or mourn the destruction of a tree (I hate trees, too). But it seems to me that mailing endless piles of catalogues with pictures so heavily airbrushed as to be considered paintings of impossibly-shaped people (we called you ugly in high school because you were, ladies) in order to market push-up bras to women concerned that their chests are too small could probably be a sign of the apocalypse (if one were so inclined to be looking for those sorts of things).

That is all. You may now resume your regularly scheduled pastel-tinted activities.

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