I went to pick up our diabetic cats at the vet clinic tonight, and needed to have a quick visit with our vet to talk about his test results. The vet’s assistant put me in an examining room to wait. Our vet is also a friend. The last time we had dinner together, she told us about this little Chihuahua that was a charity case at the clinic. It had jumped off of a kitchen counter and broke both front legs. The dog had never been to the vet before this accident as the owners couldn’t afford the expense. Now they had to, even though they couldn’t afford to, and left the dog at the clinic. The broken legs were the least of this dog’s problems. It also had a heart murmur.
When the Vet came into the room, she was carrying this dog. Both of its front legs were in little hip-to-toe casts.
“Is this the dog you were telling us about?”
“Yes. I just love this little dog!” The dog was visibly shaking, like many of these little dogs do when they are in the least bit stimulated. This dog was so small, it had to be a toy Chihuahua, if indeed some sick bastard has seen fit to breed such a dog.
I asked, “Does it even qualify for being called a dog?”
“Ha! Here, hold it just like this.” She directed me to support it’s chest with the palm of my hand. “Feel that?” I could feel the dog’s heart pounding a mile a minute, yet there was no steady rhythm to the beats.
“Man, that’s some murmur.” She put the dog in a sink while she talked to me about our cat. When we were wrapping up I asked, “Say there is such a thing as reincarnation, what sort of people would come back as a Chihuahua?”
“People who fucked over other people.” She confided in a hashed tone. Sounded good to me. This little over-bred thing was so jumpy, I half expected its heart to give out while we were sitting there.
I thought about the previous lives of Chihuahuas on the way home. If all Chihuahuas were shitheads in a previous life, then there’d be a helluva lot of Chihuahuas on this planet. More likely those who had bred that type of dog must come back as one.
Why aren’t there any Chihuahuas in these paintings?
Do Chihuahuas play poker? If so, what kind of player would they be?
Even if a Chihuahua won the WSOP Main Event, could it get any sponsors afterwards?
Perhaps an even more important question is: Why would a serious poker blogger even put these painting on his site? Because someone said there was too much text, that I needed more pictures.
NEWS ITEM:
'DOGS PLAYING POKER' SELLS FOR $590,400 AT DOYLE NEW YORK ON FEBRUARY 15, 2005
ANNUAL DOGS IN ART AUCTION SETS WORLD AUCTION RECORD FOR 'POKER DOGS' ARTIST CASSIUS COOLIDGE
Intense Competition for Pair From Coolidge's Original 1903 Series
Paddles were wagging at Doyle New York's annual Dogs in Art auction on February 15, 2005. Coinciding each year with the Westminster Kennel Club dog show, the auction offers two centuries of canine paintings, paintings, prints, bronzes and other objects.
Highlighting this year's sale were two rare paintings from Cassius Marcellus Coolidge's 1903 series of dogs playing poker. The pair were estimated to fetch $30,000-50,000 at the auction. After intense bidding from several determined bidders on the telephones and in the salesroom, the pair sold to a private collector from New York City for a staggering $590,400, setting a new world auction record for the artist.
Cassius Marcellus Coolidge was born in upstate New York in 1844 to abolitionist Quaker farmers who named him after statesman Henry Clay's brother, Cassius Marcellus Clay. An accomplished cartoonist, he is also credited with creating the familiar life-size Boardwalk cutouts, which he called Comic Foregrounds, into which one's head was placed so as to be photographed as an amusing character.
In 1903, Coolidge contracted with the advertising firm of Brown & Bigelow of St. Paul, Minnesota to create sixteen paintings of dogs in various human-like situations. Nine of these paintings depicted dogs around a card table, two of which were offered at the auction.
Poker players who placed form 10th to 12th at the 2008 WSOP Main Event made just a little more than this at $591,869.
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