Sophie's Bad Breeding

Yesterday we went to a BBQ at my sister's house. All in all, it was a great day - met lots of cool people and enjoyed the view on the lake, and Mike got to play his beloved volleyball.

But I must tell you about a neighbor we met of Esther's, a self-proclaimed poodle wrangler and breeder with six dogs of her own (which happened to be approximately twice the number of teeth in her mouth). She wandered over to us while I was holding Sophie and asked if Sophie was spayed - if not, would I be willing to breed her? Very flattering initially, but then the scary lady began a thorough examination of my dog. We told her we suspected Sophie had some bichon in her, but she would have none of it. She then proceeded to simultaneously praise and criticize her features for the next ten minutes.

"Nah, she's a full bred poodle. But these squat legs and wide body - it's just bad breeding, is all. One of her parents was a lumpy dumpy dog.

"She's so adorable, though - God it's a shame she's spayed, I would love to breed her with mine and make some cute puppies.

"Look at these ears! She's got way too much hair in them." (at which point she proceeded to yank tufts of hair out of Sophie's ear)

"Good teeth, black nose, black nails. She's definitely a full bred poodle. Well, she's just so cute. She has a few nice things about her, but major flaws. You could never show her, look at all these flaws! But adorable. She's so short, squat and dumpy." Then she toddled away and picked up her own toy poodle, which did nothing but vibrate in her lap and occasionally snarl at people.

A barrage of counter-insults started circulating around the group that witnessed Sophie's encounter, and we gave Sophie a bit of hamburger to help her forget being violated. From now on I'll be very suspicious if we ever encounter anyone else who claims to "know poodles"!