Happy Birthday Birdy!

Today, May 12, 2013, is Miss Birdy's 4th Birthday.

This last year she enjoyed plenty of media coverage over the spring and summer.

In the late spring she was co-star of a photograph with my spouse, Will, that I sent in to the Central Oregon Council on Aging's "Beautiful Seniors" Photo Contest.  (You need to scroll down a ways.)

She was the shining star of the Bend Pet Parade on July 4th and had her picture featured on the front of the community section of the Bend Bulletin the following day.


One of my former students, Ian Smyth, a fine photographer, shot a picture of Birdy and me.

I also made a short Animoto movie of the parade.

Later in the summer she was one of the dogs featured in the Source's promotion of the Best of Bend.  In spite of the fact that the woman who invited Birdy to be part of that sales tool told me that the Source would co-pay for her $100 haircut, they didn't because she didn't tell me the rules for how to get them to pay.  Oh well.  She wound up looking beautiful and I sometimes see her face on walls around town.  

CBS Dogs and Procedurals

Well, this week CBS featured two champion dogs on their cop shows.  CSI had the more dog-centric plot as it featured a French speaking German Shepherd who lost his cop partner and then helped catch the killer.  According to the blogosphere, Sam the canine cop was actually played by a few different German Shepherds.  At the end of the show he is adopted by CSI Stokes who has achieved, almost instantly (and unbelievably) a close personal bond with the dog who did all the Lassie and RinTinTin anthropomorphic behaviors we've come to expect over 100 years of dogs on film.

Detective Marty Deeks explains to Chaucer that he is afraid of poodles because he was once bitten by one.

We preferred the beautiful poodle(s?) on NCIS: Los Angeles.  Unlike Sam in Las Vegas, the poodle Chaucer was not himself an officer of the law but was instead a decoy used to track down in a soviet era sleeper spy and the Cold War era nuclear device in his garage.  The two-episode plot will continue next week but, sadly, probably without Chaucer.

Best part of the show was the agility competition which pitted Chaucer against a beautiful black poodle named Uma.  Actor Eric Christian Olsen is seen at times running with the poodle actor.

New York Magazine Runs Poodle Stereotype

Much as I hate to be politically correct, I still felt annoyed when New York Magazine ran a story titled "Does Money Make You Mean?"  in its July 9, 2012 issue and illustrated it with a beautifully groomed male poodle first kicking dirty (and poop?) in the face of a "mutt" that looked like Disney's Tramp and then, on the next page, supposedly mounting said mutt.  I think this is very unfair as it suggests that standard poodles are given to the same viciousness as their owners which I find difficult to believe.  Perhaps that's because I have a beautiful curly girly who loves everyone and his or her primate.

Andrew Apostola has re-posted the image on his blogsite here.