Saturday, July 5, 2008

What Wonderful Dogs!


Lisa: What's cool about these dogs is the fact that they're a team, you can tell that just by looking at them. As a general rule I'm against animals wearing clothes (it just doesn't make any sense for Chrissake), although I know if I actually owned a dog I would probably dress him up as often as possible. These costumes in particular are a great investment because they can be used in a number of different ways and for a number of different occasions: Halloween, trips to Germany, beer parties, fairy-tale themed events, role-playing, the theatre, historical reenactments, disguises, birthday parties, intimidation purposes, celebrations of almost any kind, Myspace, graduation, photo shoots, cheering up, day camp, mail, inspiration, the beach, small things, gifting and re-gifting, barking, friendship, dogs, babies, eeeeeeeeeeee.

Jesse: In cases like this my first reaction is obviously to blame the human - for every wiener-dog suffocating in a horrid snowflake-pattern sweater there's an equally tragic owner doing the same in the stifling pit their lives have obviously become - but here I feel like the dogs themselves are responsible and for some reason the idea of blame doesn't even begin to enter into the equation. I love this. It may stand against everything I believe in but I've found myself staring at this picture for nigh upon ten minutes and it's having the strangest soothing effect; I think this is what drowning is supposed to feel like.

Maybe its just the little details here and the way they join together to create something that is the opposite of the sum of its parts. The bug-like eyes that in the wrong situation would be borderline horrifying (imagine these things crawling out from underneath a trailer covered in mud) which work with the costumes to create the kind of cute normally reserved for ugly children and old men. The way their paws are almost touching but not quite (love). Mostly it's the idea that these two weird dogs have somehow convinced me that they share a loving, healthy relationship, with three kids away at obedience school (i don't know, that's the only dog metaphor for college I can think of. Shut up) and the kind of lifestyle where they can wake up in the morning and decide on a whim to dress up for the local Bavarian festival and their costumes just end up matching without any sort of planning.

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