Mannerus Caninus

Went to a dog and cat show this weekend in Hartford. My camera battery died by the time we got to the cats. The cats were by far the more elegent of the two, but my heart beats for the canines. How could you not adore this pumpkinized bulldog? As exotic as the animals were, the pet owners and enthusiasts were equally fascinating to observe. I've been using spandex as a painting ground precisely because of the torque and flex aspects when stretched over a wood support. At the pet show, I learned that it works equally well on a human support. (see pic) It's amazing how unexpected moments link to others from the past. Hence the importance of recording even the littlest moments of life. The 2nd image is a candid pick I took in the Buick, waiting for a light. I'm sure these two people have never met, but now in the minds of a few, they are joined in blogger matrimony. (what I wouldn't give to get them into a life painting class)

Oh but dearest reader, how you let me get carried away from my topic. We are here to discuss the glory of dogs, are we not?
My brother and I grew up with a little mutt named Sandy. I think my brother found him on his pedaling through his paper route. He was bright orange so he fit in to our family well (mother and brother have bright red hair/ my beard is like fire in the summer). There is plenty to say about Sandy, but I'll try to narrow it down to a few things. The dog hated the mail man and got maced on numerous occasions. If ever you got bored, entertainment was a mere flip of the mail slot away. What would follow would be a distant half bark growl, the sound of a clanking metal dog tag, the steady growing volume of claws ripping carpet, and a dive into the window facing the porch. The mayhem and barking would last for a good 3 minutes. On the more tender side, Sandy was a good hunter and would naturally chase after cats, but through the course of our childhood, Sandy became attached to the cats we adopted as pets. Two kittens we had, Malcolm and Angus (named after the two brother guitarists of ACDC) occasionally would wander close to the swimming pool. Sandy would go over and very delicately put his mouth over their heads and lift them away from the pool. The first time we saw this, we thought he was eating them. We later had a cat named Frito that we got from our cousins. (Frito sometimes would wake me in the morning by sitting on my chest and very slowly rubbing a claw on the inside of my nostril) As I said earlier, Matt and I had paper routes. On his was a dog named Ringo that would ferrociously chase anything that moved. Ringo was a pitbull, and Sandy was about the size of a beagle.

Ringo was in the adjoining park across from our house and spotted Frito in the front yard. He immediately charged and got in a face off with the hissing cat on the lawn. Sandy spotted them from behind the bushes, and before Ringo could tell what hit him, Sandy torpedoed over Frito right into the pitbull. Other memories of Sandy are when he would come back from the park strutting with the swagger of a New Jersey Italian in his new rolled-in perfume. And if you picked him up wrong you get an ear shattering YIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEP! But these weren't the stories I wanted to tell..... after both my brother and I left home, Sandy stayed with my mother and her 2nd husband Jerry. They no longer lived across from the park. There were no more youngsters to keep Sandy busy, and on top of it, Sandy was getting old. He ate well and even got the occasional strip steak for dinner. After a steady half decade of slowly bloating up like a giant orange tick, Sandy died. A week later I got a letter from my mother expressing a desire for me to do a painting of Sandy. Along with the letter was a picture of an orange dot, formerly known as Sandy, in a wall of ivy. The picture was shot with a flash so there was the ever present black shadow along side of him and two glowing red eyes. That was the day I swore to myself never to become a commissioned portrait painter.


Last month, I got on the radio telling this story about my father. He had a very large doberman pinscher named Max. He took it to get neutered and paid about 70 dollars. After bringing the dog back home he noticed some blood on the floor, so he went to find the dog. Max had licked the stitches open. My father loaded him back in the car and made his way to the vet. After another70 dollars, Max was stitched back up and had a plastic cone put around his neck. At home, everything was Kosher the first 15 minutes, so my father left the dog alone. When he came back he found the cone on the floor and once again, Max had licked the stitches open. Not wanting to spend anymore mone,y he took matters into his own hands. With a small bottle of super glue he glued Max's nuts back together, but in the process glued his hand to the dogs balls.


In my early 20's I was heavily into the BMX scene. I made a 'zine, had written a few articles for the big magazines in LA and had a 40 ft. half pipe in my backyard. I had a yellow lab named Saffro I had raised from a pup. The name came from the misheard lyrics of Donavan's song "Mellow Yellow". (I'm just wild about Saphron) When Saffro was about two and still very playful, I had broken my wrist skateboarding and had a cast that went from behind my elbow to over my thumb. While waiting for it to heal I had done a little riding with the cast. My friend had just bought a new bike (haro) and was showing it off. I was in the front with Saffro, watching him ride. He asked if I wanted to try it out. I was riding it in the middle of the street and was trying to do a hang five, which is a nose wheelie of sorts. It was a trick I was very familiar with and good at, so I wasn't too worried. All bikes are manufactured with different head angles, so they each respond a little differently and have different balance points. So as I'm in the middle of this trick, rolling on the front wheel, I realize that I'm going to go over the handle bars. Rather than throwing out my hands and risking breaking my wrist over again, I commit to letting my body take the brunt of the damage. I smack the asphalt and the bike comes over me and pins me to the ground. Saffro sees me on the ground and thinks that I'm playing, so she rushes out into the street and sits on my head. My hands pinned under the bike, I'm wiggling and hysterically laughing while yelling at the dog to get off.