The Poodle (and Dog) Blog

Mixed breed dogs are the hot entertainment stars of today

Forget purebred dogs like Lassie, Beethoven, Toto, Buddy, Marmaduke, Chloe, Papi, Eddie, Asta, and all those 101 Dalmatians that were a boon to puppy mill breeders and pet shops.

Today’s top dog is the mixed breed.

Pudsey from Britain’s Got Talent is in Hollywood with his owner, Ashleigh. Pudsey has  a Las Vegas gig,  a book deal and an agent. And they get to fly in Simon Cowell’s luxury private jet.

Pudsey is a cross between a Border Collie, Chinese Crested and Bichon Frise.

 

Aleister, a rescued terrier mix, stars in Steve Carell’s new movie, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.

As the earth is about to be squashed by a giant meteor, (with no hokey Bruce Willis heroics in sight) Carrell wakes up from a failed suicide attempt to find a little dog with a note attached, “Sorry,” which he takes to be the dog’s name.

“Sorry enters the story right when Dodge has reached his lowest low and given up hope altogether,” explains writer/director Lorene Scafaria, herself a longtime dog owner. “He wakes up that morning and finds he has been given someone else’s burden, which becomes a responsibility that gives Dodge’s life meaning again." Source

They team up with Keira Knightley to go on a road trip during which Sorry manages to steal the scenes. According to Knightley:

"He had an amazing ability to find the camera. Even if he wasn't meant to be in a shot, you'd suddenly find him. It'd be my close-up and suddenly the dog would be right there licking my face." Source

 

One problem with using mixed breed dogs in movies is finding dogs that resemble the star to use as doubles. After scouring shelters they found Mulligan, a dog who was scheduled to be killed that day, and two more dogs who resembled them.

 

Search for a new Benji

The poster dog for shelter dogs turned movie star is Benji.

Brandon Camp, whose father created Benji nearly 40 years ago, and dog trainer Mark Forbes are conducting a nationwide search for a new Benji.

Using the power of the internet they have set up a Facebook page and will be looking on line and in shelters for a dog with the right star quality.

 

The new Benji must be mischievous, medium-sized, scruffy and street-smart with soulful eyes. Comfortable as hero or underdog, yet likely to be a stray. Must be a fast learner, able to charm millions and willing to work for food.

What does your dog see? You might be surprised.

Dogs see the world differently from humans, but their eyesight has evolved so that they can see everything they need to see to be dogs.

For a long time we thought dogs saw the world only in shades of grey, but we are learning more about a dog’s eyesight.

Eye retinas are made up of rod and cone receptors. Cones control color discrimination and require bright light. Rods work better in dim light. Dogs have more rods and as a result they can see better in the dim light than humans. They may need only about a quarter of the light that humans need. This has served them well as predators.

Their eyes also have a reflective layer that helps even more to see in the dark. We see this reflection when a light shines on their eyes or when a flashbulb is used to take their picture.

They do lack the numbers of cones humans have and cannot tell the difference between, say mauve and dusty rose. But then most straight men can’t either.

The chart below shows how dogs and humans see color.

 

It is unfortunate that most pet toys are colored red, safety orange, or bright chartreuse, colors a dog cannot distinguish. While humans can easily see a red ball in green grass, a dog is trying to find a brownish object in a grayish setting. Yellow and blue would be better choices for a dog toy.

On average dogs have 20-75 vision. That is, they see at 20 feet away what a person with normal vision can see from 75 feet away. However, dogs can distinguish movement at great distances. Some dogs, such as police dogs, have the ability to see a moving object almost a half mile away.

Of course some breeds have better vision than others. It would be safe to say that Greyhounds, Poodles and other sight hounds (yes, they are) have better far vision than a Beagle or Basset Hound. A Bloodhound tracking has little use for vision. In fact it would probably be a distraction.

We once had an Old English Sheepdog. We tried pulling her hair back with a barrette, but that just annoyed her.

Whenever we walked her, we always got the same boring question:

How does he see?

We always gave the same smartass answer:

Contacts.

Holiday event for pet charities

As I wrote about earlier, Two Little Cavaliers and Pamper Yourself In Pink are hosting a Social Media Blog Event.

Bloggers sign up to promote their blogs on Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus.

You can enter the drawing here.

The winner will receive $112 cash AND $213 will be donated to the charity of the winner’s choice!

Golden Poodle awards for September

The Golden Poodle award goes to the surviving 9/11 rescue dogs. They are retired now and the good news is that a long-term study shows that they have not suffered the health problems that have plagued some of the human rescuers.

Possibly doctors can learn from them information to improve human health.

 

  The Lizard Brain award goes to the California legislature for the law requiring breaks for baby sitters every two hours, among other demands, but ignoring the plight of dog sitters.

 

The Neanderthal award goes to the city of New York for enforcing laws against dogs in neighborhood bars, a tradition that goes back to the early 19th century.

No food is served, bar owners welcome the dogs, humans and dogs enjoy socializing, no one is forced to go into the bars, but the bureaucrats say no.

The award goes to them also for classifying gin, whiskey and vodka as food. Possibly they have been eating too many whiskey sandwiches.

Dude, there’s a dog on your roof!

Dubi rules over a quiet neighborhood in West Greeley, Colorado. Or maybe it’s a quiet neighborhood because Dubi is the Neighborhood Watch from his owner’s roof top.

Owner J.D. Picket got Dubi from the Humane Society as a puppy. He is part black Lab, part Boxer and part mountain goat.

When Dubi was a puppy he jumped up on the patio roof one winter when the snow was deep and Picket had to keep helping him down.

As Dubi grew, he continued to climb up on the patio roof and learned to jump the four feet up to the roof of the house. Worried that Dubi would fall off the roof, Pickett tried several ways to discourage him, including installing chicken wire on the back of the roof.

But as most of us have learned, when a dog like Dubi is determined to follow his destiny, there is little humans can do to stop him. Finally Dubi won, determined to mount his aerie to watch over the neighborhood.

At first neighbors would ask if they knew there was a dog on the roof. Now people stop by to take pictures. Source

California’s new dog tethering law—it could be very bad for the dogs

California has a new law that just went into effect Jan.1, 2007 that makes it unlawful to tie up a dog for longer than three hours. It carries a fine of $250 to $1000 and at worst 6 months in jail.

It seems to me that this is a “feel good” law that is virtually unenforceable and could have the opposite effect of what it is meant to do.

I’ve never understood why anyone would get a dog and relegate it to the lonely outside instead of enjoying its company. But that isn’t the point.

First, it is a misdemeanor, meaning that a police or animal control officer has to witness the act of having a dog tied up for three hours. Since they don’t have time to drive around looking in back yards and peering over fences looking for tethered dogs, only complaints by a neighbor with a stopwatch would bring the law into play in the first place. Then the already overburdened officers would have to witness that the three hour time limit had been violated.

Second, there are already laws that state that a tethered dog has to have water, shade and protection. This new law is not going to turn bad owners into people who will train and socialize their dogs.

Third, I’ve seen no real evidence that tying up a dog makes it more vicious than raising it in a fenced yard, kennel, dog run or the home. It is the dog’s training, and to a lesser degree its heredity, that determines this.

Fourth, and most tragically, many owners will probably turn their dogs loose or turn them over to the already overcrowded animal shelters where hundreds more untrained and unsocialzed dogs with no chance of survival will have to be destroyed.

But then that is exactly what some animal activists want.

Animal rights or animal wrongs?

On a ranch outside our town a retired veterinarian has started a business. He breeds and raises purebred German Shepherds for a rather unusual purpose.

The dogs are raised in an atmosphere of love and affection, fed a scientifically balanced diet, exercised and groomed regularly, and, of course, they have 24/7 veterinary care--everything dogs need to keep them in top form, physically and mentally.

Then from time to time blood is drawn, which is sold to veterinarian hospitals to be used for dogs (such as yours and mine) that may need a life-saving transfusion following an accident or operation.

We thought this would make a great human interest story for our local magazine, but the veterinarian was quite adamant about not letting us do a story about his business. If animal rights groups heard what he was doing there, they would do everything they could to shut him down.

This sweet, gentle man has spent a lifetime caring for animals. Now he provides a lifesaving service and they want to get rid of it.

What many people do not realize is that the extreme animal rights group would like to eliminate dogs and cats from being kept as pets at all. They feel that keeping a pet is demeaning to animals. This includes guide dogs and service dogs.

They downplay this aspect of their beliefs because they get large donations from people who love their pets, money that might go to organizations such as local animal shelters that are truly committed to animal welfare.

Hollywood types who fawn over their furry companions donate generously and publicize the organization. The celebrities who carry their Chihuahuas and Yorkies around in their purses and pose for photo ops don't seem to understand that this is an organization that wants to liberate their dogs.

This group can raise more money by showing pictures of outlawed slaughterhouse practices or long banned cosmetics testing than they can if they tell the truth about their organization, that they are against pet ownership.

Much of their marketing is geared toward children who lack the experience to make reasoned judgments from emotional appeals.

Their extremist demands and use of terrorist tactics do nothing to win public support for the plight of neglected and abused pets. With a budget estimated over $20 million a year (tax exempt for the time being), they are more concerned with the covers of NBA basketballs than caring for live animals.

Please check out this story on PETA from the SF Chronicle.

PETA kills animals website