The Santa Barbara Poodle Parade

The 17th annual Santa Barbara French Festival was a tres bon party this year, with the Poodle Parade on Sunday afternoon drawing oohs and aahs all around. Even for some entrants who, according to the Santa Barbara News-Press, appeared to be somewhat less than poodle-ish.

That hulking 100+ pound Burmese Mountain Dog named Gunther didn’t fool very many parade attendees, despite his French racing cap or the fact that he was pulling a cartload of four toy poodles in the parade. Nor did Alan Fay’s Chihuahua named de Gaulle. Last year Fay entered his Doberman named Fifi, so he obviously believes his canines are French ‘enough’ to pass muster. That Chihuahua’s got “a lot of de Gaulle to get in this parade,” Fay joked. Joking has quite a bit to do with the Poodle Parade. It’s all in good fun.

“They say poodles are supposed to be smart,” said Allen Harrison of Burbank of a certain Winslow [a genuine poodle]. “But he made several mistakes on my income taxes.”

In the end there was general agreement that this year’s Poodle Parade was no more or less hilarious than any of the past parades. “To me, it was all just one endless stream of canine topiary,” remarked emcee and director Steve Hoegerman.

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Poodle News Roundup

In Recent Poodle News we’ve got everything from a clinically depressed (and overmedicated) poodle putting the gnosh on Jacques Chirac to a Best in Show poodle with no name in Detroit. So let’s get started!

Jacques Chirac: Poodle Snack – Former French President Jacques Chirac was rushed to a Paris hospital in February after his poodle Sumo turned on him in a “vicious, unprovoked attack.” Sumo, a white Maltese poodle, had been undergoing treatment for clinical depression. Apparently Prozac for Poodles doesn’t work any better than it does for people. The 76-year old ex-President was treated and released, no word about what Sumo’s condition.

FoxNews

Runway Runaway at Logan – Boston’s Logan Airport experienced flight delays as a toy poodle eluded police and airport officials for 17 long hours this past October. Turns out the poodle, Coochy, was just trying to have some fun. She was finally captured by an offer of treats, after having escaped from her transport crate after a flight from Detroit. Passengers on many of the delayed flights expressed amazement that it took so many men so many hours to catch one poodle. We Poodle People are not surprised. Poodles are some of the best escape artists since Houdini!

Boston Globe

$5 million for False Imprisonment of Fifi – LOS ANGELES: Cassie Hughes was just getting settled into her seat on a United Airlines flight from Denver to Los Angeles when she thought she saw a carrier crate containing her poodle Fifi being loaded onto a different plane. When she asked, she was assured it was someone else’s dog, and when she asked to get off the plane to check, she was plied with booze by the attendant instead. Sure enough, Fifi ended up in Nebraska instead of Los Angeles, so Huges sued United Airlines for false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress. UA tried to settle for a $1200 “lost baggage” claim, but Hughes is holding out for the $5 million.

This Is True Archive

Forget the Westminster Sussex! – DETROIT: A white toy poodle who apparently has no name won Best In Show at the 102nd annual Detroit Kennel Club Dog Show on February 28. The poodle his/her/itself hales from Pennsylvania, and while his/her/its owners got their names in the news, nobody at the Detroit News bothered to find out if the dog has a name. Somehow, I don’t think that there’s much glory to be gained by winning a Best In Show trophy without a name on the plate. But since we are all in favor of poodles being perpetual Best In Show (whatever show), we will say Hooray for Him/Her/It!!! Way to go!

Detroit News

Most Prolific Poodle Pair – VANCOUVER PROVINCE: A female standard poodle named Charlie started popping out puppies on St. Patrick’s Day last year and didn’t finish until afternoon the following day. A total of 16 healthy poodle puppies – ten female and six male – round out the family for Charlie and her mate Magnum after a previous record-setting litter of 12. Good job, Charlie!

The Oregonian

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More Great Doggie Costumes!

Yes, we are now just over two weeks away from Halloween, so those costumes for the kiddies and their canine friends have become a pressing issue. I mentioned last week the best reasons for outfitting the dog (increasing the sugar take, upping the odds on your kids winning the contest at the mall, etc.), and linked a couple of good sites for pre-made costumes.

This week, I’ll share some wonderful photos of dogs in costume, of which the above is just one. They are to be found at the excellent Dog Guide blog, and many of them are imaginative enough to have you laughing out loud. These aren’t all poodles, of course, but they’re good costume ideas for those handy with a needle and thread. It’s not hard to squint your eyes just a bit and imagine your proud and meticulously groomed poodle in these costumes, knowing that even if other entrants in the costume contest sport similar costumes on their various mutts, your dog’s ever so superior breeding will shine forth to make the effect even more laughable.

Of course, my all-time favorite poodle costume was one I’d made originally for my 3-year old grandson, who didn’t stay that size for very long. The next year I simply cut two front leg holes in it and put it on the Pood, which actually managed to triple grandson’s booty that year because the neighbors were so delighted. It was your basic dinosaur costume (Simplicity, if I recall) stuffed with crumpled newspapers to give it a nice round shape. So do go on over to Hounds of Halloween 2008! 45 Incredible Costumed Canines and tickle your funny bone!

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Fun For Kids: Poodle Stuff

If your poodle family has poodle kids – or if you’re a grandma like me, and are too old to be embarrassed by childish things – then you’ll have a great deal of fun with a simple game from Yuckles called Mr. Poodle Head. Yes, there’s a fine black poodle head, and all sorts of nifty accessories to drag and drop into place. Various ears, eyes, noses, bow ties, mustaches, hats and sill mouths can turn Mr. Poodle Head into something a lot funnier than Mr. Potato Head! I foresee many hours of fun with this one.

And now that it’s officially October, you might want to consider what costume you’d like to have for your poodle while you’re outfitting the kids. A well-dressed poodle carrying one of those plastic Jack-o-Lantern goody containers can significantly expand your children’s take for the night of door-to-door begging. Most costumes come in small, medium and large, and some suppliers offer patterns if you sew as well as tiny tea size costumes.

In addition to the pictured pirate costume, Yuckles also offers the standard superheroes (Batman, Superman, Spiderman and Wonder Woman), the full range of Star Wars character costumes (Yoda is the best, just for the ears!), your basic princess and ballerina and harem girl costumes for lady dogs (or male dogs in drag), and a few pun-ny costumes like “Watch Dog,” “Hot Dog” and “Lucky Dog.”

If your offspring are female, do consider the standard 1950s style Poodle Skirt with crinolines, sweater and scarf. That way all the poodle needs is a nice mask and matching scarf, those passing out treats will be delighted!

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An Enclosure Full of Trouble

When my beautiful Kenya was a pup, she was so full of rambunctious-ness that we’d often spend hours just watching her find things to play with, then shred into teeny tiny confetti-sized pieces. Here’s a video of poodle puppies – three black and three white – who are six times the shredders Kenya was!

Happy 4th of July to all, and don’t forget to let your poodle enjoy those fireworks too… just don’t let them bite the rockets as they go off!

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Workout Video for Poodles

…and Poodle People

For all you poodle people out there who are committed to physical fitness and energetic workouts, here’s the perfect workout video for you AND your poodles! It features Mariko Takahashi in a parody of Susan Powter’s first fitness video. It was created by Nagi Noda for Panasonic, one of 10 films made for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. Enjoy, and try not to choke while you’re laughing!

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April Fools Poodle Hoax-Hoax

A story circulating in the international news and in the blogosphere recently reported that Japanese women had been scammed into purchasing sheep that were being sold as poodles. Come on, they couldn’t see the hooves or hear the ‘Baaaaa’? If I were Japanese, I’d have been very insulted.

Of course, the story of the hoax turned out to be a hoax. From Snopes on their ‘Urban Legends’ page…

The notion that anyone who had ever seen a dog (which is most everyone) could be fooled by sheep proffered as poodles is as implausible (if not more so) as the idea that anyone could really mistake a rat for a dog. (The claim that “sheep are rare in Japan and most people do not know what they look like” is just silly: even schoolchildren who have never seen live sheep learn to identify them from pictures and drawings and can recognize them as something distinctly different than dogs. Certainly the creatures’ bleating instead of barking and having hooves in place of paws are some basic, easily recognized clues.) And in this case the tale is not something that supposedly happened to the indefinite “some tourist” in “a foreign country,” but to thousands of Japanese in their homeland, people who were reportedly shelling out the equivalent of $1600 per sheep-dog before anyone caught on to the scam and blew the whistle.

No, the swindle story never made the news in Japan, which should have alerted gullible net-noobs to something amiss. Besides, the least bit of fact checking would have demonstrated that the company supposedly perpetrating the scam – ‘Poodles As Pets’ – doesn’t exist in Japan.

The hoax hoax was promoted when radio personality Paul Harvey broadcast the story on his For What It’s Worth program, reporting that “Thousands of women paid many thousands of dollars for miniature white poodles which are now growing up and turning out to be furniture-eating-sheep.”

Hahahaha!!! Oh, my. Looks like there are some newscasters out there who needed a classroom poodle in school to teach them that there is indeed a difference between a dog and a sheep. The Japanese already knew better!

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