Great Leaping Puppies

Puppy walking again this week. This one has spring-loaded paws so every step is an exuberant leap. She is Zebedee from the Magic Roundabout in dog form, when we reach a patch of grass larger than a postage stamp she dashes around me in concentric circles, growing bigger and bigger as I spin round with her trying to maintain some semblance of control over her direction and containing my dizziness.

Everyday as I approach the door and reach my arm out to put the key in, she is already on her hind legs, as tall as a fully grown human – looking at my face as I open the door. She is tall when she is on two paws, but tall enough on four to make most people look at her twice. A teenager on a bike – what type of dog is THAT? Don’t like those usually, yet he wheels closer still. Molly bounds up bouncing around him licking his hand, then scuffs him feebly with another mistimed spring. He backs off, but is interested.
She is a beautiful dog. just in need of more training, but I can't do it now, after all, I am just the temporary dog walker, whilst her owner is on holiday, so unfortunately we are only temporarily friends. Besides, I wouldn’t want to tame her natural happy manner, and her free spirited approach to water, mud, grass, other people’s gardens, and her disdain for private property and a human’s personal space!
She is intrigued with the slow moving shallow river lying alongside our path – why should I prevent her from going in (potential pollution, litter could cut her paws – my sensible side admonishes me). Nonetheless, perhaps it is I who should learn something from her instead. Tackle everything head on, have no curb to curiosity. But sniff everything before poking your nose in!

And the winner is.... the husky

13 is a lucky number for dogs if they are pulling a Mackey in their sled. First Rick, then Dick and now Lance have won the legendary Iditarod, the Alaskan marathon for huskies. The family winners all took bib number 13 and won the event on their sixth race. As far as dog races go (and this one is 1,770km) the Iditarod takes the dog biscuit, lasting anything from nine to fifteen days. This year's sled contest took Lance Mackey nine days, five hours and eight minutes. And not content with simply one win this year, he's also the first musher to win both the Iditarod and the Yukon Quest in the same year.
I was once driven over thin ice by an Iditarod challenger, in a 4x4 without snow chains, and as we expertly slip-slid our way town-wards, he let me into a few secrets about a world I knew nothing of. He ran a husky farm inside the Arctic circle near Tromso, in northern Norway. Visitors seeking a glimpse of the elusive Northern Lights travelled out to pet the huskies, hear the puppies barking eerily at the moon, and view the mini wolf-like mothers and fathers tethered outside their doggie cabins in the snow. Huskies may occasionally still look vaguely malevolent - diluted versions of their wolverine cousins, but face to nose, they are invariably friendly and eager to please.
On the husky farm, after failing to sight any green or pink light through an inconvenient haze of low cloud, I instead went the most magical expedition of my life - a dog sled ride. After being satisfied with assurances the dogs lived for it, I looked for myself. I saw their desperation for the off, and heard their excited barks. They had to be held back from pelting forwards before the human cargo was loaded into the low sled, and the reindeer hides heaped on for warmth. I was then dragged gracefully round the cool bright white and otherwise silent landscape, by happy, panting, scampering dogs who, when stopping for a break, were petted and congratulated for enjoying themselves so well. The scenery was like escaping through the wardrobe to Narnia - was that the snow queen? Did I really just see a lone lamp post at the edge of the forest?

Poodle rockin'

I have just uploaded the Gorky's song Poodle rockin' to my mobile, so whenever my dog phone rings I am treated to a cacophony of tuneful barking. Better than what I had before - the theme to Dog Tanian and the Three Muskahounds.
I have a new client, a poodle. She is very cute, and sports a fun-sized black perm, a little shaggy, which her owner informs me is the 'puppy cut.' Ahh. She is a bouncy eight months old. I like when the dogs are happy in their hair. I was walking a dog the other weekend who had just been for the snip (I mean a hair cut) and seemed all the chirpier for it. More mobile, and far lighter, he scampered around with a new lease of life.
In America, the poodle became so unpopular in the 1920s it almost died out - can you imagine a poodle-parlour free world? Yet the poodle was originally a tough, butch breed, a water dog renowned for its duck hunting skills, without a bow in sight. The name is from the German for puddle (pfudel), and those little puffs of fancily trimmed fur at ankle and tail, as well as the No. 1 close shave on the upper thighs were first of all practical - designed for protection and mobility when hunting and swimming.
Yet Brand Poodle was relaunched in France - retiring their oh-so 16th Century practical dog tags for coiffed treeses, sculpted locks and multicoloured fur coats, more elaborate than their owners. They went on to become the ultimate fashion accessory for the French aristocracy in the 17th and 18th Century.
Come into the 2000s and it seems the Poodle needs another rebrand, to shed this silly skin and back away from the stigma of the silly haircuts. It's not going too well. Take one random poodle story. Best of Breed winner at last year's Welsh Kennel Club show, La Marka Lemerle Oscar Wilde (ahem). Disqualified after being found wearing hairspray. It's an illegal substance now - banned by the Kennel Club. The equivalent of steroids for canines. In the past, dog owners used to do all sorts to preen their pooches prior to ringside performance - add chalk, hair mousse or shine, but alas! no longer! So, Wilde's owner is screaming sabotage! He said: "I'm not saying there wasn't hairspray on my dog, but I didn't put it there."
So, we are left with a mystery on our paws, who was the elusive hairspraying menace - and when will he strike again? Perhaps it was another dog.
I wouldn't happen in a class of Bulldogs.