qotd, dog show edition
February 15, 2008
"[Poodles are] the most desperate breed there is. They are just a little too bright for the servile role of dogdom. So their loneliness is a little more excruciating, their welcomes more frantic, their desire to please a little more intense. They seem to think that if they could just do everything right, they wouldn't have to be locked up in the silence -- pacing, sleeping, brooding, enduring the swollen bladder. That's what they try to talk about. One day there will appear a super-poodle, one almost as bright as the most stupid alley cat, and he will figure it out. He will suddenly realize that his loneliness is merely a by-product of his being used to ease the loneliness of his Owner. He'll tell the others. He'll leave messages. And some dark night they'll all start chewing throats."
-- John D. MacDonald, Nightmare in Pink. Clearly Travis McGee was a dog lover. Wait. Not lover. What's that other one?
Also - Nightmare didn't hold up as well as one might hope. Ah, well.