Bonjour, everyone! Happy Bastille Day from me, Abigail McCabe. I’m stepping in for my mama while she is off at the RWA conference. She’s spending a few days drinking Cosmos in the bar, er, I mean Perfecting Her Writing Craft in many serious workshops. She’s also going to network and schmooze and thus get many new contracts, so she can be a stay-at-home to me (also Victoria the Pug and the cats, but I’m the important one)! While she’s gone, I’m staying with my grandparents, who give me lots of Milk Bones and let me make mud pies with the Yorkie next door (Shanti, my BFF).
I miss my own house sometimes. The grandparents’ place is fun (especially the big toy box), but there are no big stacks of books to climb on (and I have only climbed, never chewed! That was a vile falsehood concocted by the cats, who get inexpliecably mad when I pounce on them and growl at them). But I am able to sneak into Grandpa’s home office and get on the Internet. Here are a few fun factoids about my very favorite subject–The History of Poodles!
–The Poodle comes in 3 varieties: standard, miniature, and toy. The standard is the oldest, originally used to retrieve ducks in cold water, though Ancient Egyptian and Roman artifacts show an ancestor of the Poodle helping bring in game nets and retrieve game from marshes
–In the Renaissance, miniature and toy poodles sometimes served as hand-warmers within the long oversleeves of the nobility. They were sometimes even called “sleeve warmers” (sounds like a sucky job, IMO)
–The Poodles were great favorites of the French and English in the 18th century. Ladies of Marie Antoinette’s Court found they could clip, dye, and decorate their dogs in a vast array of styles to match their own attire. Luckily I only have to wear costumes at Halloween.
–For centuries, the Poodle’s great intelligence (for do I not possess TWO degrees of higher learning from Petsmart?) and fun personality made them popular in Victorian circuses and variety shows as dancing dogs and displayers of amazing feats of intelligence and agility
–“The Poodle is a pleasant dog that loves constant company. The dog hates to be alone, and does not like being thought of or treated as ‘just a dog'” (This author is very perceptive)
Now, I have to go. It’s time for me to run as fast as I can around the back yard and bark very loudly, until my Grandma comes to the door and yells “Shut up, Abigail!” My mama will be back to her regularly scheduled Risky Regency time next week.
Au revoir!