At Long Lash We Meet

Back in the '80s  I had the opportunity to meet Jaqueline "Jackie" Stallone, you-know-whose mother. The occasion may have been a fundraiser, just-say-no-to-drugs rally or supermarket opening; the specifics have escaped along with millions of other memory cells. But one detail of that day managed to hang on -- Ms. Stallone's yard-long, rhinestone-studded fake eyelashes. The celebrity mom kicked up a minor windstorm every time she batted those monstrous fans.





That image resurfaced when Nava, a Shi Tzu-Lhasa Apso, checked in. What I originally thought were dark tufts of fur near her eyebrows turned out to be, on closer inspection, four-inch-long eyelashes.



It is a sad day when one envies a dog for their stunning good looks,  but I'm down to about four lashes per eyeball. A decade-old tube of mascara, lonely shut-in that it is,  still rolls around the bathroom drawer.




There are beauticians (sorry, estheticians), licensed and certified to apply eyelash extensions.  In the grand scheme of things, I would prefer to die with nearly bald eyelids than an Andy Rooney brow ridge. If I die with both, go with the closed-casket option, okay?

Don We Now Our Gay Apparel

For the humans, winter in California means we don our long-sleeve t-shirts. (Who is Don, by the way?)  Sometimes we even have to swap out shorts for jeans. For the dogs, however, it's a veritable catwalk of chic coats and must-have sweaters. Stealing a page from Vogue, this year's canine cover-ups feature

faux-fur–lions and tigers and leopards, oh my.

Unfortunately, my beloved Oliver would dog-paddle across the English Channel before allowing anyone to dress him in cute little outfits.
Fortunately, the mom of my hotel guest Harvey wanted to refresh her Chihuahua's wardrobe. She doesn't drive so I took her to Ross and we settled into the pet-accessories aisle. Remember that scene in "Pretty Woman," where Richard Gere takes Julia Roberts to that upscale boutique and the sales clerks scramble to bring one outfit after another for their approval? Harvey got to play Roberts as the hooker, Margaret had Gere's role of obscenely wealthy john and I, I was the scrambler.

Harvey patiently endured the robing and disrobing until we settled on eight new jackets, sweaters and t-shirts. Frankly, Harvey looked more like a pimp than a hooker in those fake-fur coats. All he needed was a lavender bowler hat with an ostrich feather sticking out the side.

Culture Clash

Skimming through The Bark, I found an article that  suggested reading, "The Culture Clash," which I ordered from half.com. It offers yet another view of why dogs behave like they do. To author Jean Donaldson, it all boils down to  B.F. Skinner's theory of operant conditioning–you put a rat in a maize and he'll figure out how to find the cheese in the center. Dogs are just like big, furry rats that way.   They aren't trying to please, anger or embarrass us, they merely respond to positive or negative reinforcement.

Ms. Donaldson is not real big on tolerance and acceptance of alternate training philosophies. In fact, she has a rather major 'tude about anybody else's but her own. The author thinks the whole dominance/pack theory is a bunch of hooey, treats are a must for training and for God's sake, quit treating dogs like Lassie. They really don't know--or care, for that matter-- that Timmy's trapped in the mine.



Jean Donaldson offers some good ideas about how to make our dogs act like we want them to. But then, so do the Monks of New Skete, The Dog Whisperer, and dominatrix/trainer Victoria Stilwell. Ten or 20 years from now these competing theories will probably be as obsolete as teaching your dog not to pee in the house by rubbing its nose in it. It's sort of like child rearing; In the early 20th century, mothers were instructed to not pick up their babies when they cried. By the mid-20th century,  Dr. Spock was instructing to pick up their screaming babies and comfort them. It's easy to come up with different points of view regarding  the right way and the wrong way– neither dogs nor babies can tell us.





The "My way is the only way" thread (more like anchor rope) that runs through "The Culture Clash" sounds a lot like the potholes that slow our journey towards finding Jesus, Allah, nirvana, enlightenment; whatever that Big Purpose is we continue to search for. As a timely bumper sticker reminds us: "God Wants Spiritual Fruits, not Religious Nuts."