Girls and Dogs

The saying goes “dogs are a man’s best friend,” but I think there may be an untold story about girls and their dogs, too.

Today, I posted a give-a-way on my blog for a boxed set of notecards featuring collages of “Girls and Dogs.” I was surprised by the comments I received both on the site and privately in e-mail because they seemed to touch a chord. Many people shared with me that they had been dog owners since they were little girls or told me they collected prints of girls and dogs. Collette wrote that she has “one daughter and always several dogs.” Peggy told a whole story about begging for a new puppy after her dog had died. I am reposting it below. Many found the notecards poignant, whimsical, and innocent. I think the traditional image of a boy and his childhood dog conjures images of innocence as well, but there is something to be said for the sweet image of little girls and their dogs.

As many of you know, I frequently photograph young girls and focus on them in my collages. I believe that when you watch girls at play you often can catch glimpses of the women they will become. Perhaps you can see some of this in the way they interact with dogs as well. When my niece Catherine was a toddler, she used to cover my old pug Buffy up with towels or small blankets when she came to visit. She would kneel by her on the floor and delicately spread the piece of cloth over Buffy’s body, pulling it up to her neck and murmuring to her as she smoothed the wrinkles. I was surprised a few years later when my pug Vader had aged and was also feeble. My niece Tori, who was too little to have observed Catherine’s ministrations years earlier, repeated almost the identical ritual with Vader, frequently visiting and spreading a dishcloth or baby’s blanket over him, talking quietly as she did so. They both nurtured in a way I could imagine them doing in the future should they become mothers.

My nephews love my pugs as well. They visit and let them out back where they throw balls for them, toss sticks and play games of chase. They frolic and laugh, but there is a different sense of more intimate interplay between my nieces and the dogs. I have witnessed my niece Tori, “training” her family’s Akita Miley, instructing her to “sit” and demonstrating the maneuver with gentle authority. Again, I can envision her as she may be as a woman, strong and authoritative, but also clear and instructive. My 16-month-old niece Ellie met my brother’s boxer Sophie for the first time the other day and acted positively coy. My sister-in-law Leah was worried that Sophie might bother the toddler so she had locked her in her crate, but Ellie was nonplussed. She went over to the crate, stuck her face to the bars and said “Dawg, Dawg.” Later, when they let Sophie loose, my mother spied Ellie playing hide-and-seek with her. At turns coy and giggling, I could picture her years later as a teenager flirting and giving the boys a run for their money.

It seems to me that dogs, which so easily read and play off our emotions, have a lot to work with when it comes to girls and their rich emotional lives. This is not to make less of the emotions of boys, who I know have hidden depths. But so often the interplay between little boys and dogs seems so genuinely simple – happy lugs loping side-by-side through childhood. The relationship between girls and dogs seems to require more inference on the dog’s part. They seem to look to the little girl and ask – what does she need: a doll to dress, a baby to mother, a playmate to tease, a companion on which to practice her blossoming flirtations? The dog, an expert at reading emotions watches and assumes the proper role, the girl finds a willing partner to act out the faces she will one day wear. There are of course exceptions, instances when this isn’t true, but for many little girls, dogs were their first great audiences and mirrors – observing their emotions and reflecting back their many facets. My collages try to capture this complex interplay – a secret world that is a precursor to the world to come, where girl becomes woman and the playmate of childhood evolves into steadfast companion.

I’d love to hear from more from female readers on what dogs meant to them as children or to any little girls they know now? What is the role of dogs in the life of a little girl and do you think that manifests itself differently than it does with boys? Please leave a comment or email me at kimbi@pugsandpics.com and let me know.

And, below here’s Peggy’s wonderful tale:

I think that I am likely the most “original girl and a dog.” In 1970, when my parents decided to move to Wisconsin, from Illinois, I was 12 years old. My German Shepherd, Blackie, who my parents bought about 6 months before I was born, had died the day before we left WI. My mom was trying to herd 4 children into her 1966 Plymouth Fury to get us to Wisconsin. The eldest, me, would not leave….not until I got the promise of another puppy.

The conversation went something like this:

Mom: “Get in the car.” Peggy: “Nope. Not until you and Dad promise me another dog.” Mom: “You can have your own room.” Peggy: “I already get that. I’m not leaving without that promise.” Mom: “You can do WHATEVER you want to the walls. Get in the car.” Peggy: “I know that, too. Please promise me another dog.” Mom: “Get in the car, it is time to go.” Peggy: “Okay. But I promise you that if I do not get another dog, you will get no grandchildren.”

So…I got into the car and off we drove to another life in WI.

I find it very synchronistic that I would come to this website (probably from a link to something else) and see these very imaginative and amazing cards that truly speak to a young girl’s love for dogs and that age of innocence.

I am an avid thank-you note writer and I find that these would be an amazing addition to my collection of thank-you cards for those “special” friends that deserve a nice pick-me up.

Now….almost 43 years later, my mom’s home just sold which is most excellent, but the doggy wallpaper that I made them put up in my room still remains. The whimsical wallpaper with such phrases as “wanna go out?” “Let’s go to the vet” still remain in that lovely old Victorian home that I spent most of last year cleaning out for my mom.

While I never had any children, I did fulfill my dream of raising and showing dogs. With almost 30 years of loving and owning Gordon Setters, I still love life and fondly recall the joys of being a young girl and LOVING dogs.

Common Thread Give-a-Way

Time for the Great Common Thread Give-a-Way and this time it's me giving away a product! This month, fresh off the presses, are note cards based on my collages. I'm calling them Collages: Girls and Dogs note card set. It is a boxed set featuring eight note cards and envelopes. There are four different designs with two cards of each design. The cards are blank but there is story about each collage on the back of the card.

To qualify to win this boxed set just leave a comment on my blog www.pugsandpics.com. And, don't forget to visit the blogs of the other participating artists. Check out Jon Katz's photography and wonderful writing at www.bedlamfarm.com. Jane McMillan at Little House Home Arts always has some terrific pincushions available on her site, which I know would make an excellent Mother's Day present. Maria Wulf has introduced a new product over at Full Moon Fiber Art -- beautiful scarves made from vintage hankies and Nancy has some terrific jewelry showcased at Spinning Glass Studio.com.

Winner of the Give-a-Way will be announced on Thursday. And, please check out my other artwork in my gallery. Full size prints are available of the four collages printed on my note cards.

Beautiful Day

The light, the warmth, the color. This picture says it all; it was a beautiful day.

Puzzling Out an Article

Writing a business article is very different from writing a personal essay or  for that matter, a magazine feature. Not only is the subject matter usually drier, but often for me there is also a big learning curve to master the subject so I can write about it in an informed way. With a feature interview, if I do my job right usually the story will unfold in such a way as to tell itself once I get started, but with a subject such as Part IV in a series on the financial crisis and the national housing bubble, progress is a little slower.

Fortunately, I am blessed to have a wonderful editor for this type of work, who engages in a give-and-take that always leaves me with renewed confidence in my ability to tackle the subject, but the process of piecing the article together is always a different one for me. Much more of the work happens off the page. Not only is there more research, but I also find myself shuffling and highlighting pages, outlining and reviewing notes long before I write. Then suddenly something happens, a glimmer of understanding, a burst of inspiration, and I can envision how the story should come together. I liken it to putting together a puzzle and once you get those first few pieces going, you can see the structure begin to emerge. And, when I’m lucky, when I really can see how each piece connects to the next, it’s a rush. Suddenly, the whole endeavor seems less like a nightmare and more like a challenge, like figuring out a particularly difficult crossword. That’s when I’m lucky, other times I just slog along.

Today, I did a bit of both and while by midday I happened on my burst of inspiration, I realized I had left my laptop at home and had to resort to chicken scratchings on paper. Not so bad you might guess, but somewhere along the way to becoming a professional writer I lost my handwriting. It had something to do with trying to take notes while maintaining eye contact during an interview. So nowadays, I can’t really read my handwriting and it seemed best to give it up and wait to return to my laptop. Problem is that by the time I got home -- after dinner and other errands -- my energy had ebbed and while I could still see where I needed to go with the piece, I lacked the stamina to get there.

There’s something else that happens with this type of work. With any article it’s not just a matter of figuring out how to tell a story, but to tell it in the designated number of words. This can be particularly challenging with a difficult subject matter. In order to understand your subject, you need to do a lot of interviews, but that leaves you with a lot of words. So even if inspiration hits and you see how it all should come together you have to figure out what car to leave off the train, so to speak. This often isn’t easy and involves a lot of second-guessing. Right now I’m halfway through the article, have already written the end and realize that without completing the substantial bulk in the middle I only have 200 words left to exceed my word count. Not good. As a result, I am giving it all up tonight and interrupting your regularly scheduled blog post to share this process with you.

I know the article will be easier to tackle when I am refreshed, but often returning requires becoming re-acclimated to the whole piece again. Sometimes it is just easier to stay with it like you would with a puzzle, “just one more piece” you say. In any case, I have done enough of the work to have all “the edges” in place and even a good portion of the center. I just have to do the work to bring this puzzling piece to its fruition.

Email Subscription

Just wanted to let everyone know that there is a new feature on my blog. You can now subscribe by email to the blog.

Writing Prompt: I Wish Her the Sky

I wish for her the wide-open sky

Someone with whom to soar

A place to safely fall

Wings to take her higher

A nesting place

No limits

A gentle wind on which to glide

A branch on which to perch

And sing

I wish for her to fly

Beyond our horizons

To discover her own heights

To go up, up, up,

Again, again, again

Up past the balloons she loves

Up until we are but a small blue ball

That makes her giggle

Up so that she plants her face to the sun

And feels its warmth and its light

And knows only happiness

And freedom

And potential

And unfettered joy!

Writing Prompt: I wish...

Writing Prompt: Waffles' Example

Sometimes I sit and study my petite pug Waffles. She is a portrait of perseverance and determination. The aspects of her personality I find annoying – tipping over trashcans, jumping gates – she considers an occupation. She is steadfast in her goals and she never detours. I watch her when I awake in the morning and her pattern is always the same. She watches me, waiting for me to drop my vigilant gaze, so she can jump the baby gate that blocks her way upstairs and then she is at it – thump, thump, thump, thump. The upstairs garbage pails go down one after another like a string of dominoes. She methodically checks them for secret delights – purposely sorting toilet tissue to the left, dental floss to the right, the choice and most stinky items directly in the mouth. She does the same for each trashcan and then starts on the laundry basket, discarding socks and tees for panties. These she pulls all the way out and drags to her nesting place. She dedicates herself to the cause, neither veering right or left, freezing if she thinks I see her, going into stealth mode.

When I go to retrieve something from the spare closet located in my nephew Christian’s room, she follows, jumping up on the small desk chair and from there onto the futon in hopes of nabbing another cherished prize – a stuffed dog I had given Christian for Valentine’s Day. She knows this is not her toy, but his, and thus, it has become a thing of value. While I browse the closet, she grabs the dog in her mouth and drops it near the edge of the futon. From there, she nudges it with her nose onto the chair, and this is where she always gets caught. I turn to find her pondering the situation. She cannot figure out how to get both she and her treasure off the chair and as she stops to consider the situation, her wrinkled brow even more deeply furrowed than usual, I foil the whole scheme, grabbing her and the dog and placing it back on the futon. We repeat this again and again, every time I enter Christian’s room.

It is easy to get frustrated with Waffles. Many times throughout the day you hear one of us in the household yelling “No,” or her name sounding as a sort of warning or threat, but the more I observe her the more I realize that there is something going on here. When Waffles lived at my friend Joan’s house, she learned many skills to survive. Joan’s house, filled to the max with other dogs, becomes a jungle of sorts. It’s survival of the fitness of sorts, each pug for itself. Dog toys are few to prevent the pugs from fighting over them, and so they find their own amusements – an empty dog food can, a toilet paper roll, or a pair of discarded underwear.

Landing a place on Joan’s comfy bed becomes a coveted goal, but since Joan would be endlessly occupied if she stopped to help each one up, the pugs are left to find their own way there. They do so by jumping from the floor to a cubby by the bed and then making an almost impossible second leap from inside the cubby to the bed itself. I visited the other day and watched Waffles’ mother, sister, and grandmother each do this maneuver and realized that in her two years living at Joan’s, she too, must have done this hundreds if not thousands of times, often with a pair of Joan’s panties in her mouth. This was her life and whether I consider it nature or nurture, instinct or learned behavior, the antics she undertakes now are ingrained in her. She seems to consider them her vocation in much the same way I do my writing. It is what she wakes up for each day.

Perhaps Waffles has little choice in her fate, compelled by powerful drives to engage in these behaviors, but I admire her anyway. So often I let outside voices deter me from my goal or I see a project as too big and give up. I can yell at Waffles, put up a gate, steal her away from her finds and moments later she is right back at it. She does not give up. She is tiny and the odds are so often stacked against her. She never waivers. I watch and I learn and I wonder what drives us. Why do we move forward and why do we give up and how can such a small, black creature be so fearless when I so often am not? I think of Waffles and her sister, their mother and grandmother making that blind leap from cubby to bed and I try in my mind to do the same. It may not be model behavior, but in the end, it seems behavior to model.

Writing Prompt: What behavior do you model?

Letters from Paul

I feel like we have slipped back in time. My sister-in-law Leah sits at the head of the kitchen table, her long red hair gleaming orange in the sun. My parents are gathered on either side of her and I sit directly across at the other end of the table. She holds in her hand a stack of letters, our first from my brother Paul since he went off to boot camp several weeks ago.

These are letters, not texts or tweets or Facebook statuses. You can see my brother’s handwriting in blue ink on the white page. Handwriting, so personal, so unique that it reveals his mood and energy level in a way that smilies and other emoticons just can’t.

“It becomes more slanted the longer he writes,” Leah explains.

We huddle like families in pre-television days, awaiting the evening radio hour. We are brought together in an intimate circle, leaning in toward the page, all ears, intently listening. We are family in the truest sense, bound together not only by our shared affection for each other, but our mutual love for the member that is missing. For my parents and I, this separation from one of our own is a new experience. My sister-in-law  left Texas and her parents to become my brother’s wife, but as for the rest of us, none of us has left home or family for too long: a few vacations, nearby colleges, frequent phone calls and visits; there have been few occasions for letters or the need to keep each other apprised in this way.

It is strange to hear my brother’s sentences. I am used to seeing him walk through the door. He makes a jibe, I volley back, our sentences quick, short, teasing. Now, he writes his wife long descriptive phrases. He tells how they call him Old Man, the long periods of waiting, his loneliness. He says his arms are hurting. He sounds at turns bored, tired and funny. He asks what’s going on with the world. He saw something about the Boston Marathon briefly as he passed a TV set, but he doesn’t know the details.

I cry when he asks Leah how their oil is holding up – they had a hard time keeping the house warm through the cold winter – and it touches me to see my baby brother in this light. This is such a practical question, but it holds in it all the burdens and responsibilities of being a husband and father. It is a private moment between husband and wife, a shared concern, a challenge they would typically confront together, but he has left her to handle alone. And, he worries…he is not my baby brother at this moment. I have seen him as a cop, a father, now a soldier, but it is in this small detail that I see him as a man. It is jarring and affirming at the same time. My parents and I worry about our boy, but I understand he has not really been one in a long time.

Leah folds up the letters and places them back in the envelope. We unfold from our circle. She opens my father’s laptop and we check out details of the trivia contest Paul’s battalion runs. The first one to answer the Tuesday night question in lightening speed wins a picture of her soldier. We return to our time stream, checking Facebook statuses and making plans to win our picture.

“It would be nice to see him,” Leah admits, referring to the possible photo. “It would,” I agree,” but I realize that I just did.

Growing

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Metaphors seem lacking. I have heard people express pride in their gardens having tilled the soil and nurtured the plants from tiny seeds and sprouts. I have heard parents squeal in glee at children who have learned to count, say Mama or Dada or recite their ABCs. Puppies aren’t vegetables or kids, but I feel an almost inexpressible pride when I encounter one of the puppies we have raised from birth, carefully choosing new families to love and care for them.

This weekend I got to reconnect with two such puppies – one that we had sent on to a new home and one my friend Joan chose to keep. The two were brothers and both had grown into handsome boys. Trump, now known as Goofy, had always been a peculiar little boy. He was the loner in his litter, always off in a corner cocking his head and watching the world go by. He had a wrinkled, furrowed brow and a white splotch on his chest. His new owners, the Damitzes, said they took one look at the little puppy they had brought home sitting on the living room floor, his big ears flapping in strange directions and they knew his name was Goofy. He has grown into his ears and into himself. He strikes me as gentle, quizzical, but still a playful goof. He perfectly rounds out the Damitzes group of four and when they thank me for hand picking him for them, a part of me beams. In some small way, I was responsible for this little one’s fate and I did right by him and my friends.

My pride in Gryffindor is of a very different sort. Joan has been raising pugs since the sixties, but as any breeder knows even the best of them have a challenging time foreseeing how the puppies will look as adults and which ones are most show worthy. For many years Joan would consult with her friend Tom, bringing the puppies to his house and a allow him to feel them over, watch them play, and pass judgment on which to keep. After many years of knowing Joan and watching puppies born, I realized I’ve developed an eye for seeing into the future and now offer my own advice on which puppies might be best in the ring. With Gryffindor I think I got it right. He’s a big, beautiful boy with his daddy’s lovely face and a sweet, joyful temperament. He already seems to assume the show pug’s stance, “stacking” himself. He is larger than his brother, more cobby and square. He has a special twinkle that makes you smile just registering his exuberance. I’m glad he is close and I will have the opportunity to carefully watch him grow.

We are stewards of these puppies as a parent is of her children or a gardener of his garden. We till and toil and carve out a place for them. We hope it is enough. We bear witness to their growth. They provide testament to our good intentions. There is something spiritual that passes between us – the puppy and the ones who brought them into the world; there is a covenant. They will provide joy and companionship if we provide proper care and nurturing. It is not a duty to be taken lightly; there is something sacred in seeing it through. To me a life among pugs is not something frivolous or funny. It is a responsibility, a commitment to another living, albeit very different, kind of creature. In caring for them, it is me that grows.

Growing Up

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Dinner Party

We sit in the fading light of a glorious spring day. Glowing yellow sunlight bounces off the warm beige walls of the condo. Sue lights the candles on the coffee table then reaches above the fireplace to snap on the Christmas lights that she and her husband Charlie have yet to take down. The colorful bokeh casts a twinkling halo around her blonde, pixie-like head.

“Red or white?” Charlie asks our friend Yvonne as she grabs a seat on the sofa, her flowing blouse settling in around her. She has worked all day at her gift store and is happy to relax among friends.

“Red,” she answers and Charlie bends his tall frame to reach down and pour some wine in her glass.

Joan and Jane steam through the door, a whirlwind of coats, voices, boots and dogs. Joan looks better than she did a half-hour earlier. I left her at her house in pawprint-stained sweats, her graying hair in disarray. She has showered, pinned her hair back and stained her lips with a cheerful smear of peach lipstick. She takes her chair like a queen holding court, suddenly calm and poised. Staring at her square shaped face, which bears more than a passing resemblance to Joanne Woodward, it is easy to envision her in one of her past lives as a model, a role she held in New York City in her younger years. Jane hovers, slightly hunched, in back of her, peering at us from behind coke-bottle glasses. In her flowered dress and brown bobbed haircut she looks strangely childlike.

Both eschew the wine in favor of water and with the niceties complete, Charlie takes his place on the other sofa, closing our circle. Then as if drawn like magnets to fill in the holes, we are barraged by pugs – a small fawn and black army of compact, but solid bodies that feel like heavy sacks of flour landing on our laps. We move and adjust our bodies to make room for them. A very pregnant Truffles hoists her seal-like form to the top of the sofa, resting her head near her owner, Charlie. Chunky, the furry senior, curls up in the unclaimed loveseat. Lily, Josie and Miska circle their mama, Yvonne. Jerry, the grand old dame, hides in the corner. Lorelei, whose legs are starting to wane, shuffles over to Yvonne, placing her head squarely in her lap, begging for attention. The youngster, lanky, black Goofy, bows to whoever will humor him, hoping for play. He is one of the puppies from Joan’s last litter and we have gathered for a reunion to see him again. Joan has brought his mother Griffles, grandmother Releve, and handsome brother, Gryffindor, who also scamper and scurry around the floor. Sweet Pea, another old girl, sits erect on Joan’s lap, as regal as her mistress. The pugs are so plentiful I have lost track of their number. Jane has left Shim and his dogcart in the car.

I survey the room and grin at the lot of us. Charlie, Sue, Yvonne and I sip wine from fine goblets and nibble on the spread of cheese Sue has placed before us, while the pugs chew on the wine corks, try to sneak a bite from the table and occasionally piddle on the floor. We chat about the Boston Marathon bombing, Charlie and Sue’s grandchildren, condo fees, and pug ailments while attempting to keep the dogs corralled and the carpets clean.

“Do you think we need a couple of more dogs?” I joke. Everyone smiles. We would not know each other if it were not for the pugs in this room. I’m not sure how we would have met otherwise. We encompass different generations, have varied backgrounds and live in different states and towns. But we are now going on a decade or more of gatherings such as this one. We have become a comfortable pack.

We talk about when the puppies are due and plan our next visit. We laugh as the visiting pugs catch a glimpse of the resident pugs on the other side of the sliding glass doors and go berserk, charging the glass in an attempt to reach them. “You gotta go around,” Sue explains. “They just bark louder as we erupt in laughter.”

The room fills with it.

I have heard the belief that we live in an ever-increasing age of isolation, turning to our pets to fill the void vacated by humans. There may be times when this is true, but I feel none of that here. I see friendly faces both canine and human. Charlie and Truffles rest eyes half-closed, mirror images of satisfaction. Joan, Jane and Sue giggle as Yvonne shares with them dog videos on Charlie’s i-Pad. I bask in the friendship. It’s true as a single woman I know my share of longing and have some voids to fill, but I have no need of substitutions. I am part of a tribe and its members have both two legs and four.

This may not be a dinner party for everyone, but it suits us just fine. Like a dog chawing on a bone, we find ourselves perfectly at peace.

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