PET ANIMALS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9370, 12 February 1909, Page 6

PET ANIMALS.

Tbe rage for pets oddly combines at the present day all the beguiling attributes of a frivolity with the solemnity of a cult. Any fancy for pet rats can be indulged with an agreeable sense that you are spending your affections upon things competent to win first prizes, and cups, and possibly to become champions worth fifty pounds or so apiece. That fascinating villain, Oount Fosco, if he had lived till now, and preserved his contradictory tenderness towards small beasts, might have been beaming as President upon the National Mouse Club. But probably the most pampered animal of the moment is the aristocratic poodle, whose usnaUy rich and idle owner belongs to the Curly Poodle Club. A writer in tbe Royal Magazine contends that the poodle deserves good luck. Sagacious, faithful, and the smartest dog in the world for tricks, he repays devotion by the development of prime qualities not to be understood by scoffers acquainted only with his super-civilised outside. Why poodles are shaved, is an interesting question. Shaved they have been from times long past, as is proved by their effigies on monuments dating back to the year 30 A.D. The only explanation is that an unshared poodle does not look like a poodle—he mighty be a retriever. Naturally, being shaved, his mottled shanks required a cover on leaving hot rooms for frosty air, and here we have the beginning of that luxury which now ordains a wardrobe, including handkerchiefs and bangles, umbrellas for wet days, and t fur-llined motor wraps. The white Cuban poodle was expensive in the eighteenth century, because it was tbe fashion to contrast him with an attendant black jboy; but modern poodles are quite content to share the family footmen, and to drive beside an everyday chauffeur. Motor-goggles at five-and-nine may be procured in the Burlington Arcade. Poodles are very fond of motoring, and love to feel the rush of the air; thus it is a matter of importance that their eyes should be protected. It only costs a ten pound note to set up one favoured animal very comfortably, still where my lady keeps half-a-dozen poodles, and rears puppies, she may spend quite a fortune on the little luxuries of their lives. The latest news of the poodle craze comes from New York, where there is at least one fashionable hotel in which a dog’s name is registered beside that of his mistress, and she may engage for him a special suite. This is arranged in the height of comfort and of hygienic principle. There is a dog-maid to superintend meals, baths and exercise; a veterinary surgeon ready at call; tbe most attached owner may feel at ease about her pet, even when obliged to be separated from him by the exigencies of hotel life. And yet, so far is luxury from romance, our thoughts tarn with far more pleasure to a traveller on dusty roads— Bulwer Lvtton’e Sir Isaac,” who accompanied Waif and Sophy on their poor way through the world, though his mane fell in long curls like the beard of a Ninevite king, his boots were those of a courtier in the reign "of Charles 11., and has charms in general onght to have made him the pride of any Poodle. Club!