A lovely photo of a Black Lab:

©Thomas Hawk

It’s such an iconic and enduring image, the Black Lab at peace. A well-formed Lab is an arresting animal; the black ones particularly so. A Google search turns up dozens of pubs around the UK carrying the Black Lab monniker; there’s even a Black Dog Brewery.

You’d think with all those pubs and pints being poured in honour of the humble black dog, we’d all be agreed that he’s a cozy, friendly and homey figure. But not so; black dogs run through the history of British folklore as evil spirits; there are tales of ghostly black dogs in Sussex; and the story of the apparition of a malevolent black dog in Bungay in 1577 is so entrentched in the local history that it’s commemorated in the annual Bungay Black Dog Marathon.

So get your trainers on; only nine months to the next Bungay marathon, or a short walk to your local.

©darthservo

Shih Tzu twins Sparkle and Pizazz waiting patiently for treats.

I have a terrible confession: I have always wanted to have a trio of Shih Tzus just so I could name them Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail. I mean, look at those little Shih Tzu bums - how could you not be thinking of of Peter Rabbit’s sisters?

From John Sung’s wonderful San Francisco Dog Blog:

©Jon Sung

The bigger one: “I’m not saying we shouldn’t have done it, okay, but messing around with that time machine disguised as a parking meter wasn’t the best idea you ever had. Remember how this foot used to have at least a little color, like all my other ones? Now what.”

The smaller one: “Just keep looking straight ahead, okay. I’m telling you no one will even notice. Just do what I’m doing.”

Dr Who’s probably wandering around Cardiff saying “Now where the hell did I park that Tardis?”

The totally rockin’ Dog Lover Magnetic Poetry Kits are in. Hurrah! I had no idea how much fun I could have with my fridge (that didn’t involve ice cream, obviously) before I found these.

Basically, it’s 240 magnetic words you can stick to your fridge to caption photos of your dogs, or to create silly, changable dog poems. If you need inspiration, here’s a collection of very funny dog haiku. (Click the arrows on the right to page through them.)

These magnets are a great gift for humans; I might be wrong about dogs not being able to spell (I remember seeing something about a spelling dog on Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, but then, who believes anything on Believe It Or Not? Umm, not.) , but there’s no way two paws can stick these to the fridge!

Origami is the Japanese art of paper folding, associated with a long, long history of craft and tradition. A very good friend of mine folded 1001 paper cranes as a gift when my husband and I got married; they’re supposed to bring good luck as well as being very beautiful - we used them as decorations at our wedding. But when I recently packed them up to send to the Hiroshima Peace Project, I obviously had dogs on the brain because I went off in search of instructions to make origami dogs:

I couldn’t find directions to make any as fetching as these, but a very simple dog can be made by quite small children; a really cute “patient dog” can be made by more advanced origami crafters. And if you’re really patient (and, presumably, a heavy smoker) a rather amazing pooch can be fashioned from cigarette wrappers!

This beautiful photo was taken by the nice humans at Furkids in Hong Kong (opposable thumbs are handy for taking photos), and features a lovely Cavalier King Charles Spaniel called Debbie who the Furkids met at obedience school. She looks far too refined to ever let out an impolite woof woof!

©Furkids

Here’s an interesting international fact for you: “woof woof” is an onomatopoeia, a word that imitates the sound it describes: fizz and click are other examples. Sounds of this type occur in many different languages, not just English. But even though two languages may be attempting to imitate the same sound, they use different words to do it: an American doorbell goes ding-dong, for instance, while a German one goes bim-bam.

And while a dog’s bark sounds the same no matter what language the dog (or it’s owners) speak, the onomatopoeia used is very different in different languages. An American dog barks bow-wow or woof-woof, a French dog’ barks woah-woah, and a Chinese dog barks wang-wang.

Wang wang - that’s so cool!

Apparently, most of the world agrees on meow or a very close approximation for the sound made by a cat, but the number of ways dogs say “woof” around the world is really interesting. In our back garden, though, they all go arf arf arf arf…

The Seattle Times has this wonderful story about a little orphaned squirrel found by dog owner Debby Cantlon. Debby took the tiny thing home, named him Finnegan, and started bottle feeding him. When Debby’s Papillon, Mademoiselle Giselle, gave birth to a litter of five pups two days later, she welcomed Finnegan into the fold of nursing pups:

Debby plans to release Finnegan back into the wild after he’s had his fill and is fully weaned from his adopted mum. Awwwww!

[Via: the fabulous Cityrag]

©Julia Kaffe

Spotted on a street in the Bloomfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA: a sight that can truly only be explained by the entirely random nature of the universe…

We’re pleased as pugs to announce that the Poochie Poochie store is officially open for business! We’re all stocked up, the website is complete, and we’re very happy to be live. We’ve done so much research, prototyping, testing, and so production fitting in the past few months that our poor pooches are probably as tired as we are. But then, they got to taste a lot of treats and model a lot of soft goods, so they’re pretty happy to be Poochie Poochie pets.

Our Christmas theme is “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that bling” because the holidays are all about sparkle - twinkling trees, glistening snow, shiney gifts under the tree. They’re also about muddy paw prints, the scent of wet dog, and the fun of chewing wrapping paper balls into submission, but those, we decided, were not good marketing themes…

So enjoy decking out your pooch with all our lucious goods, and send in your photos (info@poochiepoochie.com) if you’d like to see your Poochie Poochie pet in the Dog Blog!

PS: We officially have the World’s Cutest Size Chart. So. Totally. Cute.

Yesterday I ran across a website with a name that truly smacked my gob: Date My Pet.

Granted, I’m an old married woman now so my dating is a bit limited these days, but even in my most desperate of single moments I never wanted to date anyone’s Doberman. Luckily, it turns out that contrary to what the name implies, this site offers “online dating for pet lovers or their pets” rather than online dating for people who want to date pets. Which would just be freaky and disturbing.

Actually, it’s still rather freaky and disturbing. Online dating for people who love pets, I understand; online dating for pets just leaves me flummoxed. How, exactly, are lonely hearts dogs supposed to connect online? Email and instant messenging are out (paws, meet keyboard) but I suppose video conferencing would work after a fashion:

“Bark once if you want to have dinner with her; bark twice if you’d rather have a frisbee date…”

In my world, breeders have always filled the role of canine yentas (or matchmakers) but I suppose in this modern age, online dating for dogs was bound to happen. And I can think of at least one dog who needs a hot date:

I’m sure your dog follows you around, wants to be with you wherever you go, is affectionate, and protective. Sola does all of these things. And she does…well, more. What I’m trying to convey (despite my discomfort in doing so) is that Sola likes me the wrong way. The way rednecks like their sisters.

Which just goes to show there really is a niche for sites like this. Because somewhere in the state of Vermont is a desperate man crying out to canines across cyberspace, “Please, date my dog!”