A Rainbow of Dogs

When it comes to some Park Slope dogs, it seems my toddler and I don't know our colors. And we are trying so hard to learn them. It's not as easy as you'd think. Once at Tea Lounge, a woman sat in a low easy chair with her Great Dane lying in front of her. My toddler, fascinated, wouldn't really leave the dog alone. We spoke about the dog.

Yes, it's a big dog. A really BIG dog. And it's grey.
Well, actually, its blue, says the owner. This kind of Great Dane is called a blue. He's blue.

Well, whatever the color, I'm glad that the dog didn't get annoyed with my little girl. Not even a growl. And I know how it is when you lie on the floor around small children. You become the jungle gym. It can get annoying, a great hindrance to your pilates. Still, if this dog were blue like Clifford is red, we'd have known he was blue.

Today walking along the South West side of Prospect Park, I drew my girl's attention to some dogs we were passing.

Look, 2 dogs! A brown one and a black one!
Well, actually, not brown. Apricot. That's what the breeders would call him.

This is hard. I didn't mean to offend anyone. Do people make such a fuss about the colors of their mutts? No, they don't. I wonder if the owners narcissism embarrasses the dog, like a parent's can embarrass a child. Purebred dogs are in many ways the victims of narcissism, and perhaps also its beneficiaries. For instance, Leona Helmsley bequeathed her dog something like 12 million dollars. I guess we can figure out what color that dog is...green.

She made no comment about her black dog. I guess she accepts black in its case. Which is interesting in itself, for a few reasons. First of all, I just read that people don't really want black dogs as much as they want lighter colors. Black dogs are under adopted. Second, her dog's not a cafe in Martha's Vineyard, one that sells a huge amount of T-shirts.

The last thing is this, but this explanation is long and capricious so hang in there if you can. My friend just got back from Dingle in Ireland. After she got back I asked her if she had brought me something from Dingle. She said, you mean, a Dingle Berry? This is what I was hoping she would say. Dingle is not a fancy sounding place, like Lake Como, for instance, or Sedona. Our car is a Sedona, a Kia Sedona. Sounds nice, right? I don't expect that manufacturer to offer the public a Kia Dingle Minivan anytime soon. Even if it's a more appropriate name. I guess there is quite a list of places that will never have a car named after them. I'd like to see a top ten list for that.

One thing my friend did bring back from Dingle was a book about an Irish storyteller named Pieg. Apparently Pieg told many tales, in Gaellic, about things like wee folk, and....sightings of a black dog. This dog was a supernatural being, and seeing it was both a good and bad thing, as I understand it. For instance, you see the dog, and suddenly you are transported into another reality, and being there, you are saved from a tragedy that befalls others not so lucky.

I see so many black dogs, I'm always seeing them, have I been carried off without realizing it? What about you? Nice doggy.