You already know that beauty exists across the species, although I confess I have never found anything attractive about a snake or a spider. But did you know that the desire to be beautiful also spans a number of God”s creatures as well?
Take our poodle, Stella, for instance. No disrespect to our three other canine “children,” Sophia and Lillian, the Shih-Tzu sisters, or Naomi, the Great Dane. I love them all, and each is beautiful in her own way. But Stella somehow has the cognitive ability and the vanity to enjoy becoming more beautiful.
She started as a standard chocolate poodle about six years ago and has become more café au lait over time, but she still captures the attention of an entire room of people when she enters. My LYLAS (Love You Like a Sister) remembers the day that she was propositioned in the carpool line at her school on Stella”s behalf. “Doesn”t someone in your family own that beautiful chocolate poodle?” the person asked. “Do you think she would like to meet our male poodle?”
“Our girls do not date,” was my immediate response when she mentioned it to me, but LYLAS knew that already. Thanks to Dr. Filgo at All Creatures, they are physically unable to, well, date, and they are all regally above men anyway.
But Stella is undeniably the most regal of them all. She”s so pretty that I”m afraid to leave her alone in the yard for fear someone might steal her. When she rides with me in the car, invariably other drivers stare and make gestures. I read their lips, and they say, “Pretty dog!” Stella is generally unmoved.
She is a bit neurotic, but then many great beauties are. At night while the rest of us are sleeping in bed, she gets down and makes her rounds to check all the doors and windows. She has severe obsessive compulsive disorder (as diagnosed by Dr. Me), because she lies on the sofa and does her nails, over and over again, most of her waking hours. They are apparently never quite good enough. The rest of those hours she devotes to improving the hygiene of the Great Dane, who is scarcely interested in such things, but never minds a bath from Mama Stella.
The funniest part is her love affair with her groomer, Keith, at Madison Ridgeland Pet Grooming. He says he has never met a “pet” who loves to be groomed more than Stella. Keith calls the day before and leaves a message to remind us, and I let her listen to the message. I swear she hears his voice on the machine and knows tomorrow is her day! While the rest of the brood arrives sleepy and a bit irritable, displaced from their sofas, Stella springs from the car into Keith”s arms and jumps immediately onto the table.
There is no doubt in her mind that it is always her turn to be bathed, trimmed, brushed, polished and scented. “Oh, Keith, can we do it all again, darling?”
While the rest pile back into the car eager to return to their yard, their sofa and their food bowls, one can easily see that Stella is already counting the days until her return to the spa. On the rare occasions when she goes in the car to another place, she is always despondent upon arrival to find that Keith is not there.
I declare that dog”s brain must take up her whole pretty head, because she is smarter than some people I know. I”m not saying which people. And I have learned from her that the desire to be beautiful is not strictly a human desire. In fact, I should probably hope that my salon clients are as excited to see me as she is to see Keith!
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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