Pets

 

A Singer with a Donkey
Guiseppe Maria Crespi (1665-1747)
Photo Credit:Manchester Art Gallery [CC BY-NC-ND]

The "pet baby boom" triggered by the Covid pandemic has translated into soaring sales of designer fashion, homeware and even tech for cats and dogs as owners treat their animals to the same creature comforts as the humans in the household...

Sales of puppy products were up by more than a quarter with customers snapping-up comforting blankets and plush beds - some complete with heat packs to make them extra cosy... Other items in demand include a £40 pet camera, a cat drinking fountain, a snip at £26, doggie paddling pools anywhere between £25-£50 and for the rugged canine, a £37 Barbour jacket...

With a third of UK households now pet owners, Pritchard [Chief Executive of Pets at Home] said the "humanisation" of the way pets are treated was gathering momentum... Sales of dog coats were up by 24%. Last year's heatwave led to a 30% increase in the sale of products designed such as cooling mats and paddling pools for dogs... Pet cameras and activity trackers allow owners to monitor how much exercise their dog walker is giving their dog.

They are even buying subscription services that provide music and TV programmes to keep their pets company. RelaxMyDog - nicknamed "Petflix" - takes dogs stuck in front of the TV on "virtual walks" with a soothing soundtrack...

(Zoe Wood and Jasper Jolly, The Guardian, 2021) 

Designer fashion, heat packs, drinking fountains, Barbour jackets, dog coats and even activity trackers.

Isn't "humanising" animals a great big con?

An Oyster Supper, 

Horatio Henry Couldery (1832-1910)

Photo Credit: Nottingham City Museums [CC BY-NC]

Karl Lagerfeld, the creative director of Chanel, died in February. He had a seven-year-old cat named Choupette. Apparently, it was Lagerfeld’s great love and it is said he would have married her if the law allowed. 

He flew her everywhere by private jet, gave her diamond necklaces, allowed her to eat from Goyard plates at the table – she likes, “a little bit of caviar” – and hired on her behalf, an on-hand medical adviser, a bodyguard and two ladies in waiting, Francoise and Marjorie. “They play with her, they have to take care of her beautiful white hair, the beauty treatments for her eyes, and they entertain her,” Lagerfeld explained. (Before his death, I might add.)

(Deborah Ross, The Times, 2019)

Would I lie to you?

Yoga

The All-Pitying Lord Of Mercy in His Four-Handed Form

unknown artist

Photo Credit: Royal Institution of Cornwall [CC BY-NC-ND] 

…Yoga with lemurs, the latest wellness craze. Or at least the thing that’s got the internet talking, after photos of the primates doing lotus-like poses went viral.

Armathwaite Hall, a luxury hotel and spa in the Lake District, is the only place in the world to offer this activity. Of course it is – its owners made it up.

…Take any activity under the sun and some enterprising soul has blended it with a few asanas. There’s doga (yoga with dogs) and yoga with ponies, bunnies and goats …In LA I tried 4.20 yoga (we passed around a spliff before practice), paddleboard yoga and sex yoga (don’t ask).

If plinky whale music isn’t your thing, gyms in London offer disco yoga and heavy metal yoga. There’s chroma yoga (done under coloured lights), and acroyoga (where you balance on your partner…In Germany you can do beer yoga. In Delhi you can try laughing yoga. In New York you can sing while you stretch at karaoke yoga.

…According to the website [Armathwaite Hotel), lemurs “make great workout partners…helping reduce stress and blood pressure”. Quite how scientific this is I’m not sure, although there is at least some research to indicate exercising outdoors can improve mental health.

…The Lemoga Spa Break costs £495 for two people sharing a room, including breakfast, a three-course dinner and a spa treatment.

Bedlam Yoga?

Black Retriever in a Landscape
Richard Ansdell (1815-1885)
Photo Credit: Walker Art Gallery  [CC BY-NC]

Dambuster's Dog

These are confusing times for historians. We were educated to believe that our responsibility is the examination of evidence, in an attempt to make a stab at truth.

Some teachers at great universities now assert, however, that not only is there no such such thing as truth but also that we should refashion our accounts of past words, events and people to conform to modern mores.

I received an email last week from a man who deemed it racist that, in a recent book, I named Guy Gibson's dog. I responded that, while of course no modern person would use such a word, in 1943 the dog and its name were facts. Nonetheless, last month the dog's gravestone was removed from RAF Scampton.

We chroniclers may come to be grateful that few people nowadays learn any history except about slavery and the world wars. Most are thus blissfully ignorant that our ancestors did even worse things than give dogs racist names.

(Max Hastings, The Times, 2020)

Oh Max, we must move with the times - the dog and its name might have been facts then, but they are not to be mentioned now. The facts are to be censored or suppressed. Evidence contained in the accounts of past words, events and people must be refashioned according to what some modern historians dictate. Can these people really be called historians? By the way the dog, in question, wasn't a black retriever but a black labrador!