Takoma Voice - Your Online Community Journal and Resource

Sin of the Month
by Abby Bardi

August 2002

Dog Days

As you swelter in the excessive heat of early August, you are probably hiding somewhere air conditioned and wondering: Exactly why is this season of peak temperatures called "the Dog Days" in the northern hemisphere?

The reason is that this is the time of year in which several local kennel clubs host three days of dog shows at the Howard County Fairgrounds. (Okay, according to the internet, the term has traditionally had something to do with the closeness to the sun of the "dog star," Sirius, so-called because of its position in the constellation Canis Major.)

I was fortunate enough to spend two doggish days in the warm, hairy bowels of the exhibition hall at the fairground, watching canines of all shapes and sizes parade in a variety of hairdos (or, I guess, furdos) on which a panoply of styling products had been lavished.

This was my second time at the annual dog show, and I guess you could say I'm shopping. Since Samantha, my Puli (aka Hungarian sheepdog), passed away a few years ago, I've been investigating other breeds so that when I'm ready to take the plunge, I'll know what kind of dog to plunge with.

I know what you're thinking--I should go to the pound and rescue some adorable mongrel, and you're right, but the truth is, and I hate myself for it, there is something about purebred dogs that I find irresistible. When I was a kid, I had a book that listed all the different breeds, and I memorized them all, from Affenpinscher to Yorkshire Terrier (no breed begins with Z). Even now, I can go up to dog owners and say, "What a gorgeous Anatolian Shepherd Dog" or "Look at the withers on that Petit Basset Griffon Vend?en."

There is something magical to me about all these types of dog that have existed since two of each of them pranced onto Noah's ark. No, the truth is, Noah had nothing to do with it. In fact, there is nothing truly pure about purebred dogs; many of the breeds listed with the American Kennel Club are of recent vintage. For example, the Chinese Crested, which looks like a cross between a Chihuahua and a cockatoo, was only granted breed status in 1991. Even the venerable Border Collie, star of the sheep dog trials, was recognized by the AKC as recently as 1995.

Nowhere is the ephemeral and sometimes controversial nature of purebredness more apparent than in the case of the Tibetan Terrier, the dog I have zeroed in on as the one I want for my canine companion. I was drawn to the TT (as they're called) because they resemble the late, great Samantha, except that the TT does not have the infamous Puli coat, which consists of dreadlocks, or "cords," that require constant maintenance.

Samantha's coat was not a huge problem until we moved to muggy Maryland, whereupon she made the very sensible decision to chew off all the cords and give herself a summer furdo. I spent several years trying to fix her coat, then gave up and clipped her, which caused her to be mistaken for an adorable mongrel, and though that didn't bother me, she found it offensive.

Samantha was a wonderful dog, and I miss her, though sometimes I was fairly sure that she was actually a surly, narcissistic bitch, so to speak, who was only pretending to be a wonderful dog. (I know this sounds terrible, but my vet assures me that this is often true). In any case, her act was good enough that being without her has left a huge void in my life, and though the truth is, she smelled bad, and my husband seems relieved to be able to breathe freely again, I feel compelled to try to find another furry friend to fill that void. Apparently, the TT is very much like the Puli in temperament.

According to the breeders I talked to at the dog show, TTs are highly intelligent, occasionally manipulative dogs whose sole function (unlike the Puli, bred to jump on top of errant sheep) is to be good company. The Dalai Lama had a TT, Senge, whom he smuggled out of Tibet when he was forced to flee there.

The TT, like the Puli, is a loyal dog, perhaps aloof toward strangers, but happy, outgoing, and affectionate, and above all, long-haired, but without the nightmarish Puli locks. It doesn't get much better than that.

So I went to the dog show to meet some TTs and their breeders and to see if there was any basis in fact to the movie Best in Show, which is about a bunch of neurotic, ill-tempered animals, i.e., show-dogs' owners. On the contrary, the people I met at the show were very nice and seemed perfectly normal apart from their taste in jewelry (i.e., Poodle pins, Briard brooches, etc.).

I had only been there for ten minutes when I fell madly in love: from across the crowded room, I saw an incredibly handsome male, and I just had to meet him. I went over to him and held out my hand, and he licked it. Love at first sight! I also met his breeder, who told me that my new amour was a stud dog (I could have guessed that) and would be fathering some litters soon, and she gave me the address of her website. (It would be so much more convenient for human affairs, I mused, if when one fell in love with someone who was already bespoke, one could turn to his offspring instead.)

When I checked the breeder's website, I discovered that she breeds a line of TT known as Lamleh. As I read a bit more on the internet, I discovered that there are actually two strains of TT; in addition to the Lamlehs, there are also the Lunnevilles. The difference apparently dates all the way back to the 1960s (ancient history, in dog years) and reads like a soap opera. Apparently, the Lamleh line, bred by a Dr. Greig, which came from India and Tibet, was the original one, but the competing Lunnevilles began when the bitch Lady Penelope mated with Lamleh champion Kala Kah, giving birth to the dashingly-named champion Prince Khan.

You'd think that the breeding of someone named Lady Penelope would not be in question, but apparently, her father, Trojan Kynos, was an F.P.U. dog (this stands for Further Particulars Unknown), who was found on the docks somewhere in Britain and certified a TT. Anyway, under these less than auspicious-seeming circumstances began the Lunnevilles. Dr. Greig was apparently outraged by the upstarts and refused to sell dogs in Britain any more, and at one point Lady Penelope and a Lamleh bitch had a huge fight, and both of them fell into the fountain--no, I'm sorry, I'm getting this mixed up with Dynasty. Well, if you want to read more about the whole ugly controversy, see "Lamleh vs. Lunneville" (http://www.netaccess.on.ca/~jgeorge/Historical/lamleh.html ).

Meanwhile, during the Best of Breed competition the next day, I sat next to a breeder and asked her what the difference was between the two lines. She explained to me that the Lunneville is silkier and leggier, and that the Lamleh dogs were somewhat stockier and had bigger feet.

Whenever a dog paraded past us, she'd say, "That's a Lunneville," or "That's a Lamleh." The trouble was, she would then call to her husband, "That's a Lunneville, right honey?" and he would say, "No, that's a Lamleh," and conversely....

It soon became apparent to me that if there is a difference between Lamleh and Lunneville TTs, no one is quite sure what it is. Furthermore, the two lines have been interbred for years, so there is no such thing as a pure Lamleh or a pure Lunneville--and anyway, who cares, they're just dogs, right? Cute, bouncy, grinning dogs with long, silky fur that's really not fur, but hair (as one breeder explained to me. He showed me what kinds of conditioner he used on his TT, and I must say that his dog smelled really good).

When I came home from the dog show, my husband looked at the ground next to my feet and seemed vastly relieved to see that there was no dog there. He's really not a dog person or, for that matter, a cat person--he's more of a car person, specifically Volvos, and I have been very nice about letting him have those (he's down to only two pet Volvos but for a long time it was four)--and he's trying to be understanding about this dog thing. He knows that they're supposed to be man's best friend, and at this point in human history, I think the more of those we can have, the better.

Meanwhile, my husband is running for office again (you may recall he ran for Congress a few years ago), so I went with him to a candidate's forum the other night where he announced his candidacy for State Delegate in District 9A. Each candidate got to speak for two minutes, at the end of which I basically knew no more about them than I had before, and it occurred to me that a much better idea would be to have them all go to the fairground and cavort in rings, one for each type of office, while the judges decide on the basis of mysterious criteria who the champions are. It would be just as efficient, and much more fun.