Glorious Bastard

Deep Acres Fields of Gold took Best Puppy, Group 3 Puppy, Winners Dog , and Reserve Winners (twice) over the weekend at the The World Series of Dog Shows in Houston.

As reported by DOG SHOW POOP:

"The big news this weekend was the big numbers in Houston where the Houston Kennel Club, Beaumont Kennel Club, & Galveston Kennel Club drew over 7500 entries for the three days. That meant that Group wins were as big as many BIS this year. Even the dogs getting group placements were making serious advances in the rankings."

The World Series of Dog Shows was a wonderful show in a beautiful arena with tons of dogs and people bustling around. There were all sorts of vendors and you could even get your teeth whitened if you so desired. We ran into some handler friends like Larry Cornelius who won Best in Show on Friday with his Skye Terrier, CH Cragsmoor Buddy Goodman, and Hiram Stewart who was showing John Shaw's Halo, a plucky little Pekingese.

On the first day, our friend Stephanie took Winners Dog with Nordstrom (of Muddy Paws Kennel) and RiLee's beautiful girl Miss Minnie took Best of Winners. My little Rufus took Reserve Dog , Best Puppy, and 3rd Puppy in the non-sporting group. The next day RufRuf (that's what I sometimes call him) took Winners Dog and on Sunday he was awarded Reserve Dog. Not bad at all for such a youngster!

But I must admit, we almost didn't get that placement in the non-sporting puppy group. You see, the published start time for the group competition was 4 PM. So were we going to hang out at a dog show all day? Heavens no! We wanted to go check out Tiny Boxwoods, a restaurant in the middle of a nursery called Thompson Hanson we had read about in the New York Times. And, boy, are we glad we did. It was the cutest place, buzzing with activity, filled with the kind of marvelous people you would never find at a dog show. And the food, the food was HEAVEN! And there was a SNAZZY little shop where dad just had to buy a tiny little sheep made by an artist in New York with a porcelain face and four wee porcelain feet . But just as the clerks were wrapping our tiny sheep in green tissue paper, dad received a call from Shelby, our handler. The group times had been changed from 4 PM to 3:30 PM and the non-sporting group was first up. Oh shit! It was already 3:20 and we were more than 10 minutes away. But dear old dad is not one to give up easily so we flew to the car and raced to the arena. Can a dog get whiplash? We told Shelby we would meet her at the ring and she didn't look too happy as we approached. All the other dogs were already in the ring and the judging had commenced. "He isn't even groomed. Should we just forget about it?" Shelby suggested.

But dad would have none of that and Shelby and Rufus approached the judge and asked for permission to enter the ring. The judge was very pleasant and allowed them to enter. But our hopes of a placement were sunk. No one likes it when you're tardy to the party. Shelby quickly brushed Rufus out in the ring as they waited for their turn on the table and, my beautiful boy, he strutted around that ring like there was no tomorrow and was awarded 3rd in group. Now that's what I would call being fashionably late! Although, I swear, I heard some of our more punctual competitors call it BULL SHIT.

As we were leaving the arena on Sunday another one of our handler friends, who was privy to all the scuttlebutt, gave us a bit of insider information, "Pretty Boys with Pretty Pups. The Bitches Don't Like That." It was so ridiculous we couldn't keep from laughing.

Donuts?

I think Sam is quite swell and he loves donuts! Now that's my kind of guy! Sam was just featured as the pet of the week in the Seattle Herald.

Pet of the Week: Sam is a West Seattle newbie
By Patrick Robinson

Sam is a four year old pure bred Tibetan Terrier and originally came from Minnesota from a breeder there.
He lives with Rian Kjolso and Elisabeth Root who moved to West Seattle only three weeks ago from Capitol Hill.

"He's a great dog to cuddle with, he loves to cuddle and sleep with you," said Kjolso. But he does like to sniff out and open the garbage. "We have to keep it up high so he doesn't get into it."

Sam is not shy about his food choices. He loves donuts. "He ate a box of donuts a couple weeks ago," Kjolso said and seems to prefer those from Top Pot but according to Kjolso his first preference is for rawhide bones. "Sam does not eat all the junk food that Rian said," Root corrected, " His most favorite food is actually carrots. Which I think is quite charming."

Sam enjoys and organizes his toys. "He's got a special Cheetah stuffed animal, he's got a special duck, and he's got a flea, a thing shaped like a bug." He keeps them all in a basket and he goes and digs each one out. "If you say go get your cheetah he knows the difference and can go to get it."

"He's a very loving smart dog but he's kind of stuck up when he meets other dogs. Except for Golden Retrievers, they're like his best friend."

Exploring the neighborhood is a frequent activity for these West Seattle newbies. They've been down to the beach, and Lincoln Park and sometimes walk along California Avenue.

Morning

Dad has this poem tacked up on the wall in one of the guest bathrooms in Dallas. I feel it really captures my feelings about the day, except for the espresso of course. I don't need espresso.



Morning
BY BILLY COLLINS

Why do we bother with the rest of the day,
the swale of the afternoon,
the sudden dip into evening,

then night with his notorious perfumes,
his many-pointed stars?

This is the best—
throwing off the light covers,
feet on the cold floor,
and buzzing around the house on espresso—

maybe a splash of water on the face,
a palmful of vitamins—
but mostly buzzing around the house on espresso,

dictionary and atlas open on the rug,
the typewriter waiting for the key of the head,
a cello on the radio,

and, if necessary, the windows—
trees fifty, a hundred years old
out there,
heavy clouds on the way
and the lawn steaming like a horse
in the early morning.

In case you are wondering, Billy Collins was the Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. But I think once you're a Poet Laureate you always are. Collins was born in New York City to William and Katherine Collins. Katherine Collins was a nurse who stopped working to raise the couple's only child. Mrs. Collins had the ability to recite verses on almost any subject, which she often did, and cultivated in her young son the love of words, both written and spoken. Billy Collins has been called "The most popular poet in America" by the New York Times.

"All babies are born with a knowledge of poetry, because the lub-dub of the mother's heart is in iambic meter. Life slowly starts to choke the poetry out of us."

-Billy Collins, The Washington Post, 2007

Dogs of the Corn

I just had to share this pic of my friend Beamer! He's posing with a Lee's Original Corn Cutter and Creamer.

According to his mom Bunky, "Lee’s Original Corn Cutter and Creamer changed my world when it comes to making this creamed corn that I have made forever. I found it a couple of years ago in North Carolina and have been smitten ever since! The little gadget has several settings and will totally remove the kernels from an ear of corn along with all the precious milk. (Just don’t cut your hand with this and tell me that I didn’t warn you! It’s incredibly sharp!). The milk is what you need to make this creamed corn taste so special (and without all that bad cream and fat!)."

You may remember that Bunky was a finalist in a big baking cook-off with her cupcake entry. And you may have come across the recipe for these divine wee cakes on my blog! Well, I just love corn and I thought you might enjoy this healthy summer recipe. As I told Bunky, I once ate an entire ear of corn, cob and all, and got quite sick. So, I guess, I really could use a Lee's Original.

Before you get cooking, check out this cute video of Beamer (His first. What a natural). Be careful though, Roxie and Angus got awfully frisky when they heard Beamer's call. Beamer is 9-years old in case you care. I LOVE your hairdo Beamer.



Creamed Corn
Serves 2-3

3 fresh ears of corn (Silver Queen is my first choice)
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/2 cup milk (you can use skim, 2 % or whole milk), plus more for cooking
Pinch sugar
Kosher salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Pinch cayenne pepper, optional

Shuck corn, wash and prepare with a corn cutter tool. (Alternatively, you can use a sharp knife. Remove the corn kernels first and then rake the knife down the cob to extract the milk.) Be sure to collect all the milk from the corn cob in the bowl with the corn kernels.

Melt the butter in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add the corn and the milk from the cob and saute for a few minutes until the corn feels almost dry (do not allow it to brown). Add the milk and sugar. Cook and stir for a few minutes until the milk is absorbed. Add some more milk, as needed, tasting for seasonings along the way. You may need to add milk several more times as the corn absorbs the milk. Cook until you have the desired consistency. The longer you cook the corn and add milk, the sugars will kick in and thicken the mixture. Season before serving, perhaps with a bit of cayenne pepper for some heat!

This is a dish that you have play with and season it as it cooks. Much of it depends on the corn you use, how fresh it is and the level of starch in the corn. You will know when it is perfect to serve!

Enjoy!

For more great recipes and fun visit www.bunkycooks.com

The Devil

Speak of the Devil!

You know how I said that I never hear from Toby (the puppy's dad) anymore? Well, wouldn't you know it, the little devil sent me a note.

I must say he is looking FINE!! As is our little girl Pandora.

Toby didn't say much. He is a dog of few words.

About Pandora:


"Pandy is doing fine and getting a beautiful coat. She has been going to conformation and obedience classes when we
can here in San Diego and also in Palm Springs."

She looks GREAT!!

A Dog’s Life: Long

Chichi, who might just be the world’s oldest dog, at home in the West Village in June.

I read this piece in the New York Times this morning and fell in love with Chichi. I bet you will too!

A Dog’s Life: Long
By SARAH MASLIN NIR

On Morton Street in the West Village lives a small poodle nearly the same color as the pavement upon which he takes his seven-times daily constitutional. He may very well be the oldest dog on the planet. But he may not live long enough to wear his crown.

According to a long string of people who have owned the little canine, he is at least 22 years old, possibly 24. The official holder of the title of oldest living dog, as recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records, is a mutt from Victoria, Australia, named Sako, born on Dec. 7, 1988 — a relative puppy at 21.

But last week, the West Village poodle fell ill with an as-yet-unidentified ailment, and the proof that he is in fact as old as his family believes may come too late.

He goes by Chichi, or Uncle Chichi, or the Cheech, though at this point what he is called is a bit of a non-issue: he’s almost entirely deaf. His vision is also obscured by cataracts. The loss of two senses, however, doesn’t seem to impede him from following his owner, Frank Pavich, 36, a television producer, or Mr. Pavich’s fiancée, Janet Puhalovic, 34, down Morton Street, where he stands out among the trendy French bulldogs.

The prime of life: Chichi at home in California in 1996.

As it grew clearer a few months ago that Chichi’s longevity might indeed be exceptional, Mr. Pavich, with some aid from this reporter, decided to look into getting him into the record book. The people at Guinness need several pieces of proof: documentation of Chichi’s age, or a veterinarian’s statement attesting to it, and pictures or videos that show him aging through the decades. These would then be reviewed by a Guinness board in London.

Mr. Pavich adopted Chichi in January 1996, when the human was 22 and the dog was 10 or 12. “His early life is shrouded in mystery,” said Mr. Pavich.

According to Celestine Lehmann-Haupt, a relative of Mr. Pavich’s whose mother, Laura Frost, was Chichi’s original owner, the dog was adopted from the John Ancrum Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, in Charleston, S.C., in the fall or winter of 1987 or 1988. Then, shelter employees estimated he was 1½ or 2 years old, she said in an e-mail message.

But the shelter shredded its old records when it moved three years ago, a spokeswoman said.

Similar verification hurdles arose further down the chronological chain. Chichi still has his tag (No. 2836) from Animal Medical West in Charleston, S.C. But Dr. Thomas Hentges, a veterinarian who has treated many tens of thousands of dogs since he began practicing in 1985, said he couldn’t recall the dog nor his then-owners. Dr. Hentges, too, has purged his records.

Chichi in Croatia, 2009.

In 1992, when Mrs. Frost fell ill, Chichi was adopted by her granddaughter, Jane Maybank. (Ms. Maybank, who lives in Charleston, has dug through her grandmother’s old photos for pictures of the Cheech as a pup, to no avail.) She handed Chichi off to Mr. Pavich, who then lived in California, after the dog growled at her new baby.

In the late ’90s, Chichi developed cataracts, glaucoma and a corneal ulcer. At one point he required hourly eye drops around the clock. Mr. Pavich set an alarm and kept a checklist at his bedside to log every drop. “We’ve spent more than a college education on him,” he said. “When you love someone, you don’t care.”

Chichi’s vet in California, Kathleen Boldy, who first saw him in 1998, wrote in a letter to the Guinness Records committee that dogs tend to develop cataracts after the age of 8. His condition, she wrote, was consistent with the age his owners believed him to be.

Chichi is well traveled. Before arriving in New York in 2008, he accompanied Mr. Pavich on location around the country. In February this year, after rebounding from a mysterious illness, Chichi traveled with Mr. Pavich and Ms. Puhalovic to their native Croatia, where he posed for photos in front of monuments like the church of St. Donat in Zadar.

“It seemed nuts, especially taking that dog that age,” said Mr. Pavich. But he added, “I’d rather him die with us than die of depression, because dogs do die of broken hearts and I can’t have that happen.”
Last week, Chichi ambled through the West Village. Today, he’s convalescing at home on Morton Street as the scant records of his provenance are submitted to the powers that be, perhaps never to see his name in the Guinness Book.

But that’s not to say that the little dust-colored dog will go unremembered. “I admire him, I almost look up to him,” Mr. Pavich said as tears welled up. “He’s been through so much, he always has the best attitude. He makes my life. He is Uncle Chichi. He’s everything.”

Chichi and Frank Pavich on Morton Street in June.

Suddie Does Dallas

Above: Sidewalk Detail at the Wagging Tail Dog Park in Dallas

Yep that’s right. Suddie Does Dallas. And why the heck shouldn’t I? I haven’t heard from that Toby in ages.

To be honest, I was a little nervous about going to Dallas. You see there was this big brouhaha at dad’s building there. Another dog loving resident, Helen, sent dad a message last month informing him that the building’s pet policy had changed and that D-O-G’s were no longer allowed in the passenger elevators. We would have to travel in the service elevator! Helen went on to explain that “the Developer, unfortunately for us, does not like dogs. Gabrielle thinks they are messy and got tangled up with a dog walker who was walking 4 dogs one afternoon. Apparently, the dogs jumped on him mussing his pants, and that is when his rant began, and the Pet Rule appeared shortly thereafter.” What a perv!

They tried to make us feel better about the whole thing by slapping a fresh coat of paint on the service elevator lobby complete with a dog-centric quote, “Dogs are Not Our Whole Life, but they Make Our Lives Whole” – ROGER CARAS. Am I being a bit sensitive or is there a little subtext there? A little salt with our vinegar?

Actually I prefer the following quote which appears on a painting at the Dallas Museum of Art.

When I Have You: Life, How Much I Love You.

I mean as long as I'm with my dad, and Angus and Roxie, life is good. Even riding in the service elevator

So, anyway, you may ask yourself, “What the heck is Suddie doing in Dallas in July?” And just what is a girl, wearing a fur coat, with two kids in tow supposed to do in a town where the temperature is 102 degrees in the shade? Well, you see, she improvises. We get up just before sunrise, when it’s a nice cool 80 degrees, and take our long walk of the day. Some days we go way up the Katy Trail. It’s a great walking, hiking, biking trail that goes for miles through Dallas and into Highland Park. Sometimes we take detours along Turtle Creek and sometimes we see strange birds that I imagine live in South America during the winter. Sometimes we see strange people.


One day we packed up and went to a really posh neighborhood called Highland Park and took our morning walk there. It’s all lovely homes and Turtle Creek continues to run through a park there. There are tennis courts and a swimming pool and there’s even a sculpture of a dog. When we were in Highland Park dad lost his sunglasses and we had to run back to all the spots where he had stopped to take pictures. Sure enough there they were in the grass below the dog sculpture. That’s what he gets for making Angus sidle up to that bronze dog instead of keeping track of his possessions.


One day we headed downtown and visited the Dallas Museum of Art, The Nasher Sculpture Garden, symphony hall and toured around the arts district. A nice security guard posed for a pic with us. He asked us how much it cost to have our hair done. Dad asked him if he liked the corn rows we were sporting that day. Dad immediately wondered if his comment could be peceived as racist. All this before 8 AM!

I think my favorite day was when we dropped Roxie and Angus off at the hairdressers at 7:30 AM and dad and I headed to the dog park at White Rock Lake. We played Frisbee for a few rounds, but it was already too hot and I was feeling really lazy. So dad put fresh water in the kiddie pool they had there and I padded around in that. Then dad bought us all some toys in a vending machine they had there, but two (a little teddy bear and a plush little dog) got stuck on their way down and dad shook and shook the machine like crazy without any positive effect.

When we returned home, dad pulled into the car wash bay in our building and I thought he was gonna wash those rubber floors mats like he sometimes does. Well he did, but he also washed me. It actually felt quite good and dad entertained himself by giving me a Pee Wee Herman hairdo when my hair was wet and full of shampoo. Then it was into our garage for a brushing and comb out and later he braded my hair. I think I looked a bit like an aging sex kitten, Bridget Bardot perhaps, when he was done. Really more like Linda Evans, I guess. I think I had what you might call a tosseled come-hither look that took hours to perfect.


During the day we mostly hang out at our place with a very short pee break around 5 or 6 PM when it gets hottest here. For once, Angus lifts his leg quickly and PULLS us back to the comfort of our A/C. I now know why siestas are so important in southern climes.

Oh yeah, on the way to dropping Angus and Roxie off at their hairdresser, we discovered a PRISTINE dog park called Wagging Tails. It was gorgeous and lush, but it was 103 degrees when we stopped by to check it out after picking up the kids with their FRESH ‘Dos. We plan to stop by early in the morning this week before Roxie and Angus return for a shampoo and comb out.