Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Poodle Bitch's Thoughts are With the Family of the Former "World's Oldest Dog"

Poodle Bitch has had her problems with "The World's Oldest Dog," Chanel (actually, Poodle Bitch's problems were not with Chanel herself, but with the hype surrounding the suspicious claim that she was "the world's oldest dog"), but she was nevertheless saddened by the news that the very old dog has passed away.

A wire-haired dachshund that held the record as the world's oldest dog and celebrated its last birthday with a party at a dog hotel and spa has died at age 21 — or 147 in dog years.


Poodle Bitch wonders why Chanel, a dachshund bitch, should be referred to with the pronoun "its" by the author of the article. Isn't it enough that she has died- must she now be referred to as if she were nothing more than a piece of matter?

Poodle Bitch hopes that the casual callousness of the authors does not in any way damage the memories that the dachshund bitch's human companions shared, such as:

Along with her owner, Chanel spent nine years on assignment in Germany, where she became adept at stealing sticks of butter from kitchen countertops and hiding them in sofa cushions in the living room, Shaughnessy said. She also liked chocolate, usually considered toxic to dogs, Shaughnessy said.

"She once ate an entire bag of Reese's peanut butter cups, and, you see, she lived to be 21, so go figure," Shaughnessy added.


Poodle Bitch would like to make two observations regarding the passage quoted above. The first is that Poodle Bitch hopes that she will treated to more bags of Reese's peanut butter cups in the future. Just to try them out. Okay, one or two can't hurt, right? They were good enough for "the world's oldest dog," at least on one occasion.

Of course, Poodle Bitch once saw a labrador bitch ingest an entire packet of cigarettes. To her knowledge, the labrador only did this once, and suffered no ill-effects.

"Go figure."

The second observation is that the author, not content to refer to Chanel as an "it," has compounded the insensitivity by referring to her human companion as "her owner."

The dog has passed away- let her rest in peace.

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