Winston's Dogs and Mine

Winston Churchill is often associated with the English Bulldog. That, however, is purely anthropomorphic assumption. The cigar-chomping savior of Western civilization owned only Poodles. Who knew?

He had two brown miniature Poodles, both called Rufus. They were treated like members of the family. The Poodle ate in the dining room with the rest of the [Churchill] family. A cloth was laid out for him on the Persian carpet beside the head of household, and no one else ate until the butler had served Rufus's meal.

One evening at Chequers the film was Oliver Twist. Rufus, as usual, had the best seat in the house, on his master's lap. At the point when Bill Sikes was about to drown his dog to put the police off his track, Churchill covered Rufus's eyes with his hand. He said, "Don't look now, dear. I'll tell you about it afterwards."

This anecdote I stole from the internet. Have no idea who wrote it, but it's a dog-eat-dog world out here, friends. And I wish someone would sue me for intellectual theft so I could garner some attention.

However, what I wished to say was that my previous experience with a dog was very different from the one we're now having with Princess Sugar. And way different from Winston and Rufus. I am coming clean, though I expect the ASPCA will send that wagon out to rescue Sugar should they come across this post. The ugly truth is that a shaggy ginger mutt of indiscernable age picked up the family as we sat at the local ice cream parlor in Savyon, Israel, SUBURBAN Tel Aviv, 1981. We were minding our own business, but this dog was an Israeli street dog and knew how to deal with gringos. Every dog in town looked just like him, with either shorter or taller legs. Our seven-year-old daughter Rachel decided he was a Beagle, christened him Snoopy, and trotted him home. For the next nine years he was our dog. What did that mean in that time and place? It meant he had free run of the house, never saw a leash, oversaw the enlargement of his line, ate table scraps, made a pest of himself by running off to the schoolhouse and hiding under Rachel's desk till the teacher made her carry him home, barked his head off at will, wouldn't come in at night till he was bribed with salami, and so on.

Now Sugar is a purebred American Poodle, from a twenty generation line of purebreds and champions. She's no Snoopy, yet she's no Rufus either. Snoopy never got neutered and it killed him. He was a skirt-chaser, once wooed a neighboring German Shepherd who broke his leg. I think it was the only time we took him to the vet. Oh, and the time he got a back spasm sleeping on the cold tile in Rachel's room in wintertime. He lived the high life, but ladies' dogs always come to a sad end. And so it was with Snoopy. He was cut down in the prime of life (maybe, though we never did know his exact age, and he'd started losing his teeth, whether to old age or street fighting, we weren't sure), under the wheels of a speeding car. Bastards.

This will never happen to Sugar. She will be spayed at six months. She'll never taste the love of a dog, never meet the sire of her puppies. None of that. She will never take a risk, never win canine love. So who is better off? Sugar or Snoopy? It's hard to say. Personally, I suspect the whole uber-protection thing is really just a ruse to protect humans' shoes. Is it really for the dog? Please write in with opinions.