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— in which I appraise some revolting new names for dog breeds

 

My friend Jim Guthro, musician, composer and longtime CBC TV executive, recently gave me a 2006 clipping of the Pets & Livestock advertisements from the Toronto Star, a Canadian newspaper. I was blitzed by an explosion of words never before encountered. Have you heard of Schnotties, Labradoodles, Puggles, Yorkipoos, Minpins, Schnoodles, Teacup Malteses, Golden Doodles and Shi-poos? What a revolting concatenation of glutinous cutesiness and smarmy nomenclatorial treacle parading under the name of canine hybrid breed names. Why, that list of names, spoken aloud, sounds like a mother cooing toilet-training advice to a particularly recalcitrant infant defecator!

How could any self-respecting bowwow hold high his muzzle and cherish his doghood while bearing so infantile a name? Hybrid puppies are fine — if such these creatures be — for muttdom is indeed a genetic Cuisinart. But, as I gazed through my tortoise-shell lorgnette at that word schnoodle, the needle indicator on my barfómeter hit the top. One advertisement touted a schnoodle already microchip-embedded! Another pathetic puppy had been “dedewclawed.” I had to investigate that one. It was the semi-literate owner’s attempt at the already existing negative adjective dewclawed. Therefore the first prefixed /de-/ is redundant. But then so are the human hybridizers of these hideous caniculi (Latin ‘little dogs’). Dewclaws, for those of you who will be in first-time nearness to puppy paws soon, are vestigial digits, such as festoon the inner aspect of a dog’s foot.¹ Appropriately, see footnote.

Another lilliputian doglet, one I considered buying, was listed as “dewormed, first needle, flea-treated, tail docked (2), tattooed, no-shed, vet-checked, CKC registered, and paper-trained.” We did all that to Aunt Charlotte before we forced her to enter the nunnery, the Convent of the Blind Sisters of the Elora Gorge, but—do you know?— such procedures did not help at all. By the way, I didn’t buy that dog. I couldn’t. It was not listed in Debrett’s.

I simply cannot admit to stately Casselman Manor an unlisted digitigrade carnivore of the Canidae family.

 

Some Definitions

A Schnoodle is a Schnauzer crossed with a poodle.

A Schnottie is a Schnauzer crossed with a Scottish Terrier.

A Labradoodle is a cross between a Labrador Retriever and a Standard Poodle.

And sickening cuteness in dog names is a cross between senility and basic disrespect for a tame animal’s being.

 

The Ancient Covenant Between Human & Dog

One day when I was 25, after I had witnessed cruelty to an old dog, I said to a friend, “Eons ago when the first starving wolf or lupine wild dog crept wretchedly, hesitantly to the fire of a shaggy caveman, and, after baulking many times, finally accepted the first piece of offered burnt meat, at that moment a bargain was struck between wild dog and human. It was as if the dog said, “I surrender my wildness to you, human.” And the human said, “I give you my promise, dog, to protect you and be your friend.” Any person who violates that distant human promise is filth. Silly names are not cruelty, but they tiptoe close to a contempt that is oblivious of the dignity we owe to the congenial fellow creatures of our earth.

In Which I Embark on a Conclusion

Arf! One can intuit the meanings of the remainder of these new breed names. I will not stoop to define a Shepadoodle or a Shi-poo. Nor shall I step in the latter. In all of dogdom there can be no inaner name than Shi-poo. I can visualize, in what’s left of my mind’s eye, the quivering, dewlapped dowager who first coined such a wretched label. I can see some poor little ball of a dog lost in her heaving mammary embonpoint barking for air, pleading to be let loose from her imprisoning bosom.

Of course, I don’t want to be a dog in the manger about this. It is all very well, I suppose, for the dog snobs to dismiss all these new hybrids as mutts and low curs. But I think many accepted canine breeds began in lowly circumstance.

No matter how we may vilipend their names, denying their cuteness is difficult.

New Breed Name Announced

I will end this excursus into canine inanity with the announcement of a new breed of dog that I have been hybridizing out in the barn. It is a cross between a Rat Terrier and a Husky. It is a Rusky. Like a St. Bernard, the Rusky carries a cask tied around its neck. Unlike the St. Bernard, the Rusky’s cask contains radioactive polonium. The frisky little Rusky can carry that poisonous polonium from Putin’s office to…well….anywhere in the world.

Footnotes:

1. Dewclaw Removal Note Quoted from The Internet:

“Dewclaws may be present on both the front and hind feet, but are more commonly found on the front, a little higher on the leg, much like a thumb. Dewclaws are also removed at 2-3 days of age so there is minimal pain felt. Dewclaws are removed using veterinary suture removal scissors. They have a little hook that can be placed firmly behind the dewclaw allowing for a clean quick cut, and there is minimal bleeding. If dewclaws are not removed they can cause many problems in adult dogs. The dewclaws, if not kept cut short, can grow around and grow right into the side of the foot or foot pad, which is a very painful and needless thing. Also, dewclaws can and do get hooked on everything, even carpet, and if they tear it is very painful and can bleed profusely and be very traumatic for both dog and owner. It is much better to prevent such problems with dewclaw removal, and this quick procedure is more readily accepted and even encouraged.”

 

2. Docking tails “has been proven to have no benefit whatsoever to most dogs and there is no legitimate reason for docking the tails of most dogs.”