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!

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!

Famous Poodle People

It’s been noted here and there in posts to this blog that some famous people have been poodle-lovers - including entire regiments in European armies. So in this post I want to set down the list of famous people and their poodles.

The first thing you’ll probably notice is how many of these Poodle People are famous artists, musicians, actors, comedians and such. Thus it’s not difficult to see the poodle as Muse, which might be a more high-brow role in history than just being notorious hunters and dogs of war!

• Winston Churchill’s poodle was named Rufus.
• John Steinbeck had a poodle named Charley, namesake for the book Travels With Charley.
• Jacqueline Susann had a poodle named Joe, who was the subject of her short story Along Came Joe.
• Andrew Wyeth’s poodle was named Eloise.
• Jane Goodall the famous chimpanzee researcher had a poodle named Gigi.
• Julie Nixon’s poodle was Vicky.
• Both Louis XIV and XVI had standard poodles around to pretty-up the palace, and Marie Antoinette had her own poodle who didn’t lose his head.
• Pablo Picasso was a poodle person, so was Prince Rupert of the Rhine.
• Billie Holliday’s beloved poodle was buried in her best mink coat.
• Sammy Davis Jr. named one of his poodles Bojangles.
• Marilyn Monroe received a poodle as a gift from Frank Sinatra. She named it Mafia.

Other famous Poodle People (grouped in no particular order to save list room)…

• Juan Peron, Omar Bradley and Grover Cleveland
• Elizabeth Taylor, Princess Grace and Katharine Hepburn
• Barbara Walters, Barbara Streisand and Barbara Eden
• Jack Lemon, Betty White, Bob Hope and Cary Grant
• Claudette Colbert, Helen Hayes and Vivian Leigh
• Tallulah Bankhead, Lucille Ball and Liberace
• Joe Garagiola, Patrick Swayze, John Mitchell and Kirk Douglas
• Mariah Carey, Maria Callas and Gypsy Rose Lee
• Ingmar Bergman, Doris Day and Joan Crawford
• Walt Disney, Michael Wilding, John Lehmann and Jack LaLanne
• James Thurber, John Forsythe, Red Buttons and Robert Vaughn
• Ed Sullivan, Robert Mondavi, Walter Lippmann and Oribe.
• Benny Goodman, Gary Cooper and Clare Boothe Luce

Of course, poodles of all colors and sizes are one of the most popular breeds of dog ever since people started breeding dogs for special qualities. This is a (partial) list of just those Poodle People who have earned some fame of their own so readers will recognize their names. If readers have any knowledge of other famous people who loved poodles, contribute in the comments! The poodles’ names if you know them, and any anecdotes you may know about them.

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!

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!

What Can a Trained Poodle Do?

Back when we’d first adopted our beloved Beau the black standard from the local animal shelter [A Poodle and His Clown] we were working as directors of a state funded after school program for at-risk and adjudicated young teenagers (12-14) at a local Jr. High school.

Beau was just 6 months old when we got him. He was about 9 months old when a volunteer from the local police force (good outreach) volunteered his time to help us with the kids. He turned out to be a great asset, kept most of the adjudicated kids out of trouble from then on by being their friend and mentor. One afternoon he brought a couple of beautiful German Shepherds - the ‘real’ shepherds that surprise people. Smaller than expected, low-slung in the rear. Seems he’d been promoted to K9 training and these were his babies. He’d trained dogs when in the military, our town was just starting a K9 program. His dogs were the same age as Beau, who as it happened had been to the vet that day so ended up at the school with us for the program that day.

We’d told our young policeman about Beau, of course, and he’d mouthed some platitude he’d learned in the Army about big poodles being excellent service/K9 dogs, but he’d never actually seen or met one. The moment he saw Beau - who was quite hairy at the time and already bigger than either of those shepherds - it was love at first sight. All that he’d heard about giant poodles suddenly clicked in his mind, and within 15 minutes he had Beau joining his pups in the “Obedience Show-Off Game.” He offered to include Beau in his training course for free, just wanted to work with him.

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Those Cool Alaskan Sled Poodles

In my post 12 Nifty Things About Poodles, I mentioned those standard poodles who ran the Iditarod dog sled race in Alaska for John Suter from 1988 through 1991. He’d begun mushing poodles in the mid-1970s, competing in the 1976 Chungiak Sled Dog Race. In 1992 Suter’s daughter Esther tackled the 154-mile race with her poodles, and other mushers are adding poodles to their teams.

For a grueling race in ice and snow, the dogs need boots even if they’re regular Alaskan Huskies or Husky-Hound crossbreeds. Mushers can be downright snobby about their sled dogs, as is clear from Mark Hamilton’s opinion in the newsletter of the Inuit Sled Dog International, Dog Sled Racing vs. Sled Dog Racing.

Still, as reported by Angus of Alaska in the It’s an alaskan dog’s life, poodles can not only be great sled dogs, they’re also really good for impressing the ladies for their owners down at Koot’s in Anchorage, so they’re definitely double-duty dogs!

As january goes on and on and on, and February’s foreshortened period of white stuff still looming, thinking about poodles who love the snow is good. If ever I take up skiing I’m going to use my poods to get me to the top of the run so I don’t have to pay for a lift ticket!

Check out this article on how to keep those poodles warm during winter.

Links:

Poodle Sled Dog History [John Suter’s site]

Poodle History: Draft/sled dogs

How to Train a Winning Dog Sled Racing Team

It’s an alaskan dog’s life

CrazyUnclePaul: The Iditarod Dog Sled Race

Wikipedia: Sled Dog

Welcome Russian Visitors!

I have been getting some hits from a Russian language site, and wish to welcome you all! I’m using the Paralink translation site to see what you are saying, and I thank “The Professor” for his/her link to this blog.

Now I’m going to try to post this in Cyrillic…

A Poodle Person Who Hates Christmas?

I spent some years hating Christmas, I admit. It’s because I’m an elf. When we first moved to the mountains of western North Carolina 15 years ago, we of course went looking for work for which we were suited. Our family entertainment company made a good living for us in Florida, where our clowns, jugglers, fire eaters, super heroes, puppet shows and other costumed characters were hard at work every weekend and most of the week. But there aren’t a million people in a 30 mile radius of this homestead.

We used to have up to a dozen clown-elves covering six malls from the week before Thanksgiving through Christmas Eve. We have the costumes and the skills, so signed on as “Papa and Mama Elf” - plus Bob and Kenya the Christmas poodles - to do the stage shows at a seedy Christmas theme park in Cherokee. Basic clown stuff, some juggling and some dumb magic tricks. Bob and Kenya sported Elizabethan red and green collars, did the meet-and-greet at the theater door and gladly accepted love from the kids on their way out after the show was done. The kids loved it. The poodles loved it. We didn’t love it all that much…

Six shows a day, seven days a week, six months a year from May through October. In god-awful costumes, wigs, hats, tights, striped thigh socks and curly felt boots that are hot to wear in December. We quickly found that in July when it’s 95º in the shade, they’re unbearable.

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How “Intelligent” Are Our Dogs… Really?

Imagine watching a Big Headline News story blaring the “shocking” news that scientists have discovered that dogs can tell the difference between red lights and green lights. Whoa, you might think, you guys believed they were red-green color blind? How did you make this earth-shattering discovery, the CNN interviewer innocently asks…

“Vell,” the white-haired egghead in the lab coat begins in his thick Austrian accent, “ve taught zem how to drive, and found zey stopped at all ze red lights while proceeding through all ze green lights!”

It’s the cognitive dissonance that makes a joke like this funny. But wait! There’s more, and no, it’s NOT a joke!

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