Heart of Dogness

Happy Hogmanay

Hogmanay is the traditional Scottish solstice festival, celebrated on December 31 to allow celebrants to recover from the hangovers incurred on the actual solstice and then again on Christmas.

Hogmanay customs include first-footing, an annual brawl to be first across the threshold of the neighbor with the best remaining supply of whisky; and first-smooching, an annual brawl to be first to kiss any attractive colleen who forgot to flee to somplace safer, like the crater of Mauna Loa. If you're the first across your neighbor's threshold to drink all his whisky, and the first to kiss his wife, daughter or granny, you're considered extremely lucky. Because you'll be moving out of the neighborhood very soon.

The origin of the word Hogmanay is obscure, research having been effectively stalled by the haze induced by the celebration itself. There is little evidence to support the theory I'm trying to float, which is that befuddled farmers returning home on January 1 were trying very hard not to reveal that they'd spent all the Hog Money.

Coming next week: The long-anticipated series on Single Malt Scotch Terriers

Slick

When Slick, who looks kind of like a long, tall, thin Border Collie, was rescued, he got so excited he had a heart attack. The nice lady who serves as Slick's communications director told me he was taken to Angell Animal Medical Center in Boston, where he was equipped with a pacemaker. He goes back once a year for a checkup. He's going in for his third checkup in January.

For Slick and his communcations director, every day is Christmas. He was wearing the collar shown when I met him.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

Doggies: Your Best Investment

Blagojevich, Madoff, Dreier. Sheesh and Baksheesh. Get a dog. You'll be better off. But don't let one dog see another getting a better deal.

Season's Greetings from Steve

Just in time for Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Solstice and the Festival of Scrooge, Steve the Little Fluffy Dog sends you his best wishes on a festive and heartfelt (well, we're sure he felt it somewhere) T-Shirt. Available at Zazzle. Not yet at other fine merchants.

• More High-Class Steve the Little Fluffy Dog Products
• More Ultra-Fashionable Heart of Dogness Products

Update: Now also available on a Mug. And an Apron.

Joel Achenbach on this time of year

In today's Achenblog:

"In the woods, the fallen leaves are still dry, not yet degraded into the wet mulch of winter. You rustle as you walk. On a good day, the air is clear to the edge of space; everything is in sharp focus, or HD as we now say. The sun at midday remains sulky in the south, but the effect is dramatic, putting everything in chiaroscuro, the tree trunks lit up so brightly you'd think the place staged for a photo shoot. Invariably, you find yourself discovering how big the trees are, how majestic, now that you can really see their bones."

Not to mention this is the best time of year to take the mutts to the beach.

The New Yorker reads Heart of Dogness

At least if this week's cover is any indication. (Used without permission. May Barry Blitt and David Remnick have mercy on my soul)

Brian's True Dog Story 1: Stealth Beagle

My old college buddy Brian sent me this here True Dog Story there also (sorry, too much Palin):

My beagle, Leo, loves to eat Halls Mentholyptus Cough Drops. The cherry ones especially; we share a craving for those and I keep a couple of bags on hand.  He will attack me to try to get cough drops if I have one in my pocket. Being a beagle, he can catch the scent from the other end of our house ( a whole six feet away!). 

One night when I had a legitimate sore throat and had put several Halls in my pajama pocket at bedtime, I went off to sleep forgetting that I hadn’t consumed them. The next morning I woke up to find the cough drops gone but the wrappers neatly piled up on the bottom sheet. Leo had burrowed under the covers, gotten into my pocket and helped himself, all without disturbing me one bit.  A true stealth beagle. George Bush could have used him in Iraq.

Jumper's True Dog Story 4: Lying Eyes

When I decided to adopt my dog, Trouble, I knew there was a big age-difference problem. After all, she was barely past adolescence. She wanted to do young things, and I wanted to mostly sit and read and drink old tawny port, and smoke my pipe, and think about Spinoza. And occasionally go down to the Old Boys' Club and sit in the dark mahogany library, and talk to the other gentlemen about the shipping stocks, and the lost glory of the Empire. And she's usually glad to see me when I arrive home. Most nights she sleeps by my bedside.

Trouble, however, wanted to run free, and go jogging, and had dreams of being an Iditerod sled dog. God knows we live too far from Alaska, but I have never had the heart to destroy the hopes and dreams of such a young and beautiful animal. So even though she's not supposed to, every so often Trouble goes out on me, late at night, and sometimes doesn't come home until dawn. I see the evidence: the KFC wrapping paper in the yard; and sometimes I can even tell another dog has been with her. I just don't let on.

Those nights, this old house sure gets lonely. I guess I'm her rich old Man, and she won't ever have to worry. But she still can't hide her lying eyes.

From Jumper's Journal. Used by permission. Link to original.