The Poodle (and Dog) Blog

Cooper the Viszla keeps golf course free from goose poop

Losing an occasional sandwich from their golf carts is a small price to pay for the service Cooper the Viszla provides for golfers at the two-course Ohio State Golf Club.

Cooper is trained to run toward geese and scare them off before they can be-fowl (hehehe) the area. Snatching food from golf carts is something he taught himself.

Cooper, an important golf course staff member, belongs to Dan Trubisky, the club’s athletic grounds specialist.

Before Cooper came, some of the areas were covered with goose poop making a very messy situation. Golfers had to walk around it and putt through it. “Cooper has really solved the problem,” according to one golfer.

Ducks and swans also inhabit the golf course, but Cooper leaves them alone. He has learned to distinguish other waterfowl from geese and concentrates only on the messy geese. Cooper doesn’t actually catch them. He just scares them away when they land.

Cooper rarely interferes with golfers, except for the occasional sniffing out food from golf bags thing. But even then the golfers don’t seem to mind.

When he isn’t working, Cooper lives in an apartment with Trubisky. 

"I got him for the geese, but I also really wanted a dog," Trubisky said. "It's nice to be able to bring him to work, and the golfers seem to love him." Source

Dennis  Tucker …er… Cooper is a Hungarian Vizsla, a dog bred for hunting but also known for fearless adventures and voracious hunger.

PETA scores yet another hypocrisy

Hunky and heavily tattooed Chad Ochocinco, wide receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals, is the latest bimbo to pose nude for PETA.

There is just one problem.

The catchphrase to the photo is “Ink not Mink. Be comfortable in your own skin and let animals keep theirs."

He holds a football strategically covering his boy parts.

The problem is that a football which has traditionally been nicknamed pigskin is actually now made of cowhide.

So now I guess it is all right with PETA to use dead animals for human purposes as long as they aren’t cute and furry.

Formerly named Chad Johnson, Ochocinco changed his name in 2008 to match the “85” on his uniform. He appeared on last year’s “Dancing with the Stars.”

Big NFL salaries don’t last long. Who’s betting that old Chad isn’t paving the way for a new career in show biz?

A different kind of purse dog

Certain people whose names I don’t like to mention on this blog have made a fad out of carrying tiny dogs around in designer purses.

But Lu Lu is a different kind of purse dog. She walks around on her hind legs carrying her own purse.

The one-year-old Miniature Pinscher belongs to retired teacher Zhou Guanshun, a resident of the Henan Province in China.

China.

Have I mentioned lately that The Poodle (and dog) blog (and probably most of your sites) is still being blocked from China.

In retaliation I am trying not to buy products made in China.

They probably haven’t noticed.

Guess who’s coming to dinner

A North Carolina woman, Beth Isenhower, has always rescued stray cats and dogs through the years.

Driving home with her 10-year-old son, Mack, they spotted two small black puppies running along the road and took them home.

Later when her husband, Eric, came home, he and Mack went out to see if they could find any more of the puppies. They did find another puppy running along the road, followed by the mother, a Labrador Retriever mix.The puppies seemed to be around 7 weeks old.

The mother and three puppies were friendly, but very hungry. The family decided to foster the little family until they could find permanent homes.

The next morning as they went off to their work and school, they left the three puppies inside and put the adult dog in the fenced in back yard. But when Beth returned home from work she discovered that the dog had chewed through a bungee cord, opened the latch and escaped.

For the next hours they searched the neighborhood and surrounding woodland where they had found the dogs, but didn’t find her.

That evening around 8:30 there was a scratch on the door. When Beth opened the door, the mother dog rushed inside with three more puppies.

“This is the place, kids.”

Now that her family is all together, the mother dog has made no attempt to escape.

Now two weeks later, the dogs are fatter and full of energy. No one has stepped forward to claim them. The Isenhowers intend to keep one of the pups and are looking for safe, permanent homes for the rest. Source

All is safely gathered in...

The Search for Santa Paws—A review

The Search for Santa Paws is this year’s Disney Christmas movie, available today on Blu-Ray/DVD.

In the beginning we are introduced to three sets of characters:

• Santa Claus and his new impossibly cute enchanted talking puppy, Paws, bid farewell to the gang at the North Pole to make a pre-Christmas trip to New York City. The people there seem to have lost their Christmas spirit and Santa wants to find out why.

• A young couple from Los Angeles inherits a Christmas store. They want to sell it and go back to LA, but the terms of the will call for them to run the store through the Christmas season before they can sell it.

• Young orphan girls (a la “Annie”) are being supervised by a horribly evil woman who allows no Christmas decorations, no singing, no toys.

The lives of the characters come together as the adults and children discover the true meaning of Christmas and the importance of friendship and family. Along the way we also are treated to musical production numbers and introduced to cute street dogs with quite charming dialects.

My fellow critic, Damon, age 11, gave the movie a 9. I gave it a 6. We usually agree on family fare, but my reservation is that it may be a little intense for younger children.

Santa is mugged when he lands in Central Park and then gets hit by a car, causing him to have amnesia. Later Santa almost dies because his magic crystal was stolen. The woman who supervises the children makes Scrooge look like America’s sweetheart. She delights in locking the children in the basement and incinerating their most precious possessions.  When she steals Paw’s magic crystal, he is turned back into a stuffed dog, barely escaping being incinerated.

Older children will probably love the high drama (Damon did), but younger or especially sensitive children might find Disney’s darker moments a little intense.

As most of you know I still have flashbacks to “Old Yeller,” “Bambi” and “Snow White.”

Doggie odd couple looking for a home together

Two dogs now named Bonnie and Clyde have shown their devotion to each other in a very sweet story that just needs to have a happy ending.

Around Labor Day a Pennsylvania dog warden with a really big heart captured a stray Pit Bull.

When the Pit Bull (Bonnie) was in a crate on the truck, her boy friend, (Clyde) a Chihuahua, got between the crate and the warden, barking and growling most ferociously in an effort to protect her.

So the warden sat on the ground and had a conversation with Clyde the Chihuahua.

"Eventually he let me get close enough so we could have a face to face & heart to heart discussion. I told him that his intentions were very noble and would not go unrewarded for the both of them."

Then, instead of following the set routine for a Pit Bull, which is to take her to a facility to euthanize her within 48 hours, the warden found both of them a safe place at a no-kill Washington Area Humane Society in Eighty Four, PA.

Although there wasn’t room for them, the staff allowed them to stay in the bathroom for two days until they got a run open.

Now they are inseparable. They go on walks together, eat together, sleep cuddled up together. They get along well with people and other dogs.

Finding a home for both of them isn’t easy. People who want a Pit Bull don’t usually want a Chihuahua and people looking for a Chihuahua for sure don’t want a Pit Bull.

The warden who found them hopes that someone will give them a chance.

"You may find a loving, loyal and dedicated companion to fight for like our Chihuahua friend did. Perhaps this story will give you a second chance to revisit your thoughts and opinions concerning Pit Bulls. They deserve the opportunity to overcome a stereotype that can most certainly lead them to death."

More information

No honeymoon in Mexico—the dog ate…the groom's passport

From Fox News, Boston

A Massachusetts couple's plans to honeymoon in Mexico were ruined after their dog ate the groom's passport,

Two days before Eric Mann and Brook Blew of Lancaster, Mass., planned to leave for Cancun, the couple's 2-year-old Basset Hound -- named Moses -- chewed Mann's passport. With the passport's photo and bar code still intact, the newlyweds were able to pass through security checkpoints at Boston's Logan Airport.

But when the pair arrived in Cancun, they were sent home by immigration officials who called the passport's condition "unacceptable."

"One of the supervisors there working came over and said 'This is unacceptable. You're going to have to leave,'" Mann said.

The couple was reportedly able to get their money back from JetBlue but not from the hotel  which cost $1500.

Hm, let me get this straight. Millions of illegal immigrants are in this country with no passports. Two Americans with money to spend in Mexico are sent home because of bite marks on a passport?

Japan’s newest police dog—Momo the Chihuahua

Weighing in at 6.6 pounds, Momo (Peach) was one of 32 out of 70 successful candidates to pass a search and rescue test by finding a person in five minutes after smelling their cap.

The competition is open to any breed of dog, but it is quite unusual for a Chihuahua to be entered.

Momo will be used in disasters such as earthquakes since she will be able to go into places too narrow for dogs traditionally used for S&R, such as German Shepherds. Source

I have a crush on Vladimir Putin

For several years I have had a crush on Vladimir Putin.

“Bad Vlad”

It isn’t just the sinister KGB background, or the high level Judo skills, or the Rambo style horseback riding, or the Shirtless in Siberia fishing and hunting jaunts, or the Formula One racecar drives.

It isn’t just his acrylic painting that raised $1.3 million dollars for charity. Some critics said the painting looked like it had been painted by a sentimental old lady. Those critics have not been seen since.

Well, it’s all that stuff, but it’s also his menagerie. It includes a new puppy, a Siberian tiger, Koni the Black Labrador, a crystal crocodile, a Persian gazelle, a mother goat and her babies, two Poodles and a cat.

These were mostly given to him by foreign leaders or dignitaries who thought it wise to suck up to Putin for one reason or another.

But mostly it is because Vladimir is a Poodle cuddler. Any man who cuddles a Poodle is a man secure in his manhood.