You Know This is Hanging in a Foyer Somewhere

Lisa: It's kind of like the dog is the only one who realizes how fucking stupid this is. Where are they, Sears? First of all, the kid is dressed like a fucking idiot for chrissake. Is it Christmas? No, I'm seriously asking you, is it fucking Christmas? Because only then is it okay to wear red and green together, otherwise you look fucking festive for no reason. Also, I used to have jeans like those and they're really goddamn stupid. It's like they're jeans and sweatpants in one, with an elastic waistband and everything. Finally, the shoes -- oh hell, the shoes. If it is Christmas, why the fuck is he wearing dirty white sneakers? Who the hell would put their son in dirty white sneakers on Christmas? If you want my opinion, the only good thing about this portrait is the dog, and he knows it. Dogs are not seasonal, they go with everything, and they're always in style. Unlike this fucking train wreck of a kid.

Jesse: This dog has the tortured yet saintly countenance of a 14th century Christian martyr. This boy is carefree and joyful and cannot yet grasp the concept of death. Together they star in a dramatic Russian television series called молодой парень, печальная собака (This Darling Child and his Sorrowful Hound) where the little kid repeatedly toddles into mildly dangerous situations and the dog has to save him again and again with his wearied face appearing in extreme closeup like the exact representation of an entire nation's troubles. It may seem to us like a Lassie retread but the whole thing as this amazing cinematic quality and a sense of gravitas that you don't find on American television. Take for example this one scene where the boy tumbling is in slow-motion down a snowy hillside toward the biggest mud puddle you've ever seen with THIS music playing and the dog senses it and is rushing through a crowded town square with the snow coming down and flashbacks to his mother being taken away in the Black Maria (there's still a lot of guilt in this country about the overzealousness of Soviet dog catchers) and there are repeated cuts to the boy's father chopping wood and his mother preparing a roast and then there's this amazing long shot from a helicopter or something where they draw all the way back and you can see the dog rushing down the hill and the early evening shadows are framed amazingly against the path of the boy's descent and you're like "wait a second what am i watching"

Buhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Lisa: A smiling dog is like therapy to me. This dog is so soft and happy looking I want to press my face up against hers and, I don't know, bite it? I want to bite it. Softly, like that thing a dog does when he wants to see what you're made of so he just like grabs your arm really gently in his mouth and just holds it for a minute, like "okay, well I guess you're made of human" but he dosn't let go right away because he loves you so much. You know? That's what I want to do to her. I want to hold her snout in my mouth and see what she's made of. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh god ohhh

Jesse: Like those little red laughing Buddha figurines they sell in Chinatown this dog is an iconic representation of a basically intangible thing. He should be modeled into life-sized pillows and distributed to disadvantaged children so they can know what it feels like to be loved by a cloud.

This is a Large Dog

Lisa: IF I COULD HAVE ANY DOG ANY DOG IN THE WORLD THIS WOULD BE IT. While I have an average-sized interest in average-sized dogs I have an above average-sized interest in above average-sized dogs THIS DOG IS A GIANT! DO YOU SEE! I am below-average sized if I had this dog I could ride him I could save money this dog would give me rides it would be a fun day! I don't like that man who is he. Is it maybe a cow!

Jesse: Notice first the look on this guy's face, which is wavering at that exact point where he realizes he's lost control of the situation. You know this clown and his antics, how he traps you into inviting him to your party and gets "buzzed" as quickly as possible off his "patented" cocktail of Passion Fruit Smirnoff and Cherry Limeade so he can immediately devote himself to his role as self-appointed party ambassador, obnoxiously pushing people to do shots, making jokes about your refrigerator magnets, putting a lampshade on his head in the most painfully self-conscious way possible where he has three or four false starts because not enough people are looking and you're just mentally blacklisting everyone who cracks a smile. But here he has hubristically bitten off more than he can chew and the gods respond by flattening him with his own cow-hound dance partner. You cannot dance with a dog of this size. A tall woman is hard enough to manage and she's not even slobbering in your hair or struggling with the fact that she's not meant to be on two legs and has the center of gravity of an Ikea bookshelf.

So here you can enjoy this moment where he mentally says "whoaaa boy, steady" and the no, it's ok really smile flashes like a star twinkle before his knees sort of buckle and he gives one or two strained grunts and topples over on his back for this monster to drag its skee-ball sized testicles over his stupid Budnik-looking face and practical hat.

Friendship!

Lisa: I wonder what happened to this dog here it's like his wolfdog friend is like "man don't sit too close i don't want anyone to think i know you" and the fuzzy dog thing is like "but dude i can't even SEE this thing is around my neck man" and wolfdog says to him "yeah man you look like an IDIOT you totally shouldn'ta fuckin attacked that bird dude" and fuzzy dog goes "fuck you man this whole thing is all your fault" and wolfdog goes "shut the fuck up man" and fuzzy small thing's all "you got me into this the least you can do is act like a fucking FRIEND" and wolfdog's like "shut up shut up shut upppp" and fuzzydog's like "man this sucks i can't even see a fucking thing"

Jesse: Summer is here and that means its time for lemonade and strolling and for your two dogs to pose serenely on the front lawn like they're the subject of an Andrew Wyeth painting or a family photo circa 1907, the bigger one with his vacuous, pupil-less eyes and the collar attachment that says "My name is LARS and someone at 493 MAPLEVIEW TERRACE loves me" and that bizarre sense of impending doom (the eyes again) that sends up chill up your spine when you wake up in the middle of the night and see him watching you from the foot of the bed. Then there's Terrence who still gets a kick out of wearing that Elizabethan collar even though its been six months since the operation and you throw it away at least once a week but each time he digs it out and stuffs his little head back inside, running around the house like an inverted lampshade, getting stuck as he tries to squeeze under the armchair and then plopping down in the grass like he's using the thing for suntanning purposes. God bless these furred beasts.

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.

Happy Independence Day

Lisa: Here in America there are two kinds of dogs: Dogs that are proud of their country, and dogs that don't give a shit because they think they have no fucking responsibilities. We all have responsibilities! When you wake up in the morning you should say to yourself, "I am an American. I live in a free country! I am lucky to live here, I'm lucky to have been born here, and I'm going to make the most of all the resources that are available to me." I'm talking guns here, folks. We have the fucking right to bear arms and the only people who seem to care are those that are equally interested in fucking their sister. NOT COOL DUDES. We could shoot shit up. We could shoot each other. We could shoot people that aren't American, or people that are American but don't share our values. We could shoot dogs if we wanted (please don't). We could shoot things that rhyme with dogs, like frogs or logs or pogs (except I'm under the impression that some pogs are worth quite a bit of money nowadays so it's really important that we assess our collections first). Why? Because this is fucking America and we are free! I feel like nobody's with me on this. Nobody except this dog. Check out the heat he's packing. It's like he fucking KNOWS what he's DOING when he walks into a room.

Jesse: The worst thing about extremist groups is the way they pick on the weak-minded and physically defective so you end up with situations like this, where this poor little creature, who's spent his whole life being trampled underfoot at dog runs and sniffing the backs of the other guys knees ends up at a weekend retreat with some dickhead in a flannel-shirt and high-waisted Levis named Brother Glenn who preaches about the dissolute natures of the larger breeds and cats secretly running the ASPCA and how the doggie-door to heaven is only 14 inches high. He's feeling good, running free and breathing the mountain air with a knockwurst-looking pug who can barely move and a mutt that someone abandoned in the dog food section at Wal-Mart and he actually starts to believe this shit because this is the first time in his life that he feels like someone is really speaking to him.

Before you know it he's outfitted head to toe for the coming race war, carrying a pistol that he can't even shoot correctly and barking a farewell message to his family about how his soul is ready to ascend the peaks of Mount Zion propelled by the unclean blood of the Great Dane into a video camera that isn't even turned on.

Holy Hell Just Look at this Dog

Lisa: When I was little I had this fear that my toys came alive when I was asleep or out of the room. This was long before Toy Story even came out, although I think it's worth noting that when it did I couldn't sleep for weeks. I was similarly suspicious of my pet bird, a Cockatiel named Robin that I got for Christmas when I was six. I thought he was a genius -- I mean, he kind of was -- but I thought he understood English perfectly and behaved like a totally normal person when my back was turned, and that his whole "bird" shtick was just a cover for, I don't know, the government? These days my paranoia manifests itself in other ways, or at least it did until I saw this picture. WHAT THE FUCK! I mean, HOLY FUCK! "Oh look I've got a little dog oh cool he's acting like a dog that's kind of neat he's all on the ground and shit like dogs should be oh hold on I'll be right back" and the second I turn around he climbs up a fucking BAMBOO SHOOT? IS HE INSANE? Where the fuck did he find a fucking bamboo shoot anyway? No, seriously, I'm done here.

Jesse: It seems cheap to go the Asian route with the presence of the bamboo shoot and the slightly askew eyes, but this guy is so firmly established on a Zen-level plane of serene inner peace that he's only a few inches of chin whisker away from being matte-framed on some stoner dude's wall between the 10 Iroquois Commandments and a black-light poster of Jesus with dreads.

It's especially impressive considering how other dogs seem set to drift through life in this half-drugged Cheech & Chong mode where they treat every bug they see like a fascinating little smidgen worthy of three hundred sniffs. Meanwhile this guy has climbed a plant and is smiling at you like he's about to recommend the book that will change your life. It's actually kind of embarrassing. You can imagine that the rest of his species is spending their day forgetting where they buried half a muddy tube sock while he's locked away in a tiny workshop figuring out a way to make his thumbs opposable.

Dogs are fun!

Lisa: One of the most fun things about dogs is they like to play it's neat because they're so much fun you like them? they turn the most regular normal things into fun games like this dog here he sees a rope that's attached to things that are in the ground and he says "now this to me looks like a game, who's in?" but nobody's in since he's probably more fun than anybody else in the world and his imagination is so beautiful that he's the only one that's able to see the fun in everything it's a curse really but like one of those beautiful curses like how the elephant man was so gross looking but he was like a really nice guy and beautiful on the inside and had so much inner strength and things but anyway so this dog is like "shit man this looks like a rad game" and he fucking bites on the rope and it turns out he's RIGHT the game is pretty much the most awesome thing he's ever played and if i were there i would just sit down on the ground and watch him and be glad that he's not the elephant man because if he was i would like him much less

Jesse: Remember that scene in White Fang when White Fang is forced to fight that other dog and you can tell by his initial reticence that he doesn't want to have to do this again because he's tired of that wild life and having to bite the shit out of canines he knows are his brothers just to prove a point so he gives that look that's like "cmon guy we don't have to do this" but the other dog has no use for it and he's on White Fang with his teeth and White Fang holds back for a second more until its too much and he just tears into this fucking dog and its about as horrifying as you can get with a PG rating, but you know he had no choice so you can respect it and at the last moment when that dog's throat is exposed White Fang pulls back and gives him that look so he knows he wasn't worth it and the guys who bet on the other dog throw down their hats and walk out of the place just shaking their heads? That was awesome.

A Bit of History

Lisa: Okay, so everyone's familiar with Darwin and all of his big ideas, but what most people don't know is his theory on dogs.

Charles Darwin was just 22 years old when he set foot upon a ship called the Beagle during the winter of 1831. It was upon this ship that he wrote two of his most famous papers, "Dogs: Truly Man's Best Friend and Probably the Best Animals in the Entire World" and "I've Never Loved Any Woman as Much as I Love Dogs, Do You Think I Am Gay or are Dogs Just Really That Great?" In these papers, he speculated that dogs are the most evolved creatures on earth (I would have to agree), and that thousands of years ago existed a race of dogs so advanced that we have yet to discover the secrets to their technologies.

One of the many things that supported his theory was this dog painting. You may notice that the subject has opposable thumbs, which explains how he was able to dress himself in such complicated attire (complicated especially in comparison to the sweaters and t-shirts you may find on dogs of today). Also significant is the fact that the painter (who was also suspected to be a dog) was able to paint inside the lines, unlike my friends' dogs who can't even hold paintbrushes.

The cause for their extinction has not yet been determined; however, Darwin popularized two schools of thought. The first is that a great war broke out and left all but few dogs dead -- which, I suppose, is possible except for the fact that all dogs are best friends with each other, so why would they fight? The second (and more scientifically ground) theory is that this race of dogs is still thriving, they're all just really really really good hiders.

Jesse: If you think this kind of sick dog-man motif sprung whole from the twisted mind of that guy who takes terrifying photos of those gray dogs posing in painter's hats and overalls with human hands then you're wrong. Back in the 1800s people were painting dogs heads coming out of everything: vases, decorative Greek-Revival porticos, the chimneys of small cottages. It was a terrible fad and while nowadays you'd have the geniuses at Best Week Ever taking the air out of the whole thing by Friday evening people in the 19th century were much too polite and so this went on for nearly 80 years. There was even a 60-foot scene of the Battle of Waterloo at the Winter Palace in Petersburg that was painted over with dogs heads on all the soldiers and which, according to rumor, precipitated through its sheer awfulness the early death of Tsarina Anna Ivanovna from tuberculosis at age 14 (seriously).

Things had thankfully slowed down by the late 1930s when in a move that seems pulled from the latest Indiana Jones flick the Nazis began rounding up any paintings of this kind and burning them for the danger they posed to "the sanity and well-being of the greater European continent." SS terror squads raided mansions in Amsterdam and Copenhagen and destroyed untold quantities of stupid portraits featuring dogs wearing pince-nez and foppish hats with the hands of Lord Marlborough or Alexander the Great. This of course was entirely hushed up after the war because we need our villains cast in black and white and the idea that a group of monsters could have performed such a service to the world was rightfully offensive to most people.

Thanks to this paintings of this style are now pretty sought after and guys in the Midwest with doctoral degrees and careful moustaches spend hours discussing them in online forums. This, however, is a fake, you can tell because a dog would never have been allowed to attain the rank of Rear Admiral.

HOW MANY DOGS DO YOU SEE

Jesse: Like that optical illusion where the picture is an old woman and a young lady this photo can be taken one of two ways; the ambiguity is so locked into a half empty/half full dynamic that it could be used in psychological testing. Now if you're an optimist you're seeing this Norman Rockwell scene with the big dog as the watchful father waiting for these little guys to finish eating so he can lead them running off in a line connected tail-to-mouth, across main street and the frozen-over pond past the old mill to visit down at the orphanage for Christmas morning. If you're more negative minded you see him getting ready to show these pups a thing or two and go crazy on seven bowls of Kibble. There's also the more nuanced option where the big dog is about to pull rank to take his share and then back away gracefully or that he's staring at a very small bug behind that puppy, but the world of dogs is black and white (this is a pun, they cannot see colors) and so there's no room for this kind of varied interpretation.

Lisa: I don't know, there's something something about this picture that makes me want to die. In a good way. Maybe it's the fact that it combines my favorite things (dogs, food, friendship), or that there are SEVEN ADORABLE PUPPIES being FUCKING ADORABLE, I mean GODDAMN mister just LOOK at them! I also like the fact that their tails are in varying degrees of waggedness, CAN YOU TELL HOW HAPPY THEY ARE TO BE EATING? No, no, TO BE ALIVE? And I like to think the grown-up dog in the background is their older brother Chester whose mom was like "Chaz, I really need a nap do you mind taking them outside for a little bit?" and Chester's like "but Moooom I don't want to they're so dumb!" when in reality he's like the proudest big brother in the world and when he watches them play he thinks they're the smartest and cutest pups that ever walked this green earthhhhhhhh~