March 12, 2013

The Alpha and the Omega.



The Abby and the Zeus. Abby is a 17-week-old St. Bernard, and Zeus is a 6-year-old Labrador Retriever. They come from different neighbors, and in our house, we try to apply the Principles of Dog, which — I'm told — do not include equality.

ADDED: Meade warns me that Abby might chew my shoes, and that may draw your attention to these UGG slippers and these Patagonia shoes.

59 comments:

Anonymous said...

Meade is head of the pack. Althouse is the alpha female. The rest of the pack wants to find their slot and fit in...

pecking order is the rule

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Are we to treat dog posts as cafe posts?

Amartel said...

Walk them together.

rcocean said...

Rank has its privileges in the Dog world. Had two dogs as a kid, one a twenty pound "Old timer" and a 50 pound "young kid" - guess who bossed around who till the "old timer" died?

Kensington said...

Great video! I can almost smell Abby's dog breath. :)

Ernst Stavro Blofeld said...

Do St Bernards retrieve?

Zeus seems younger than six. He's still got that young lab/spazz vibe going on.

kentuckyliz said...

Love these two. What delightful puppers. Can pets you watch on video bring your stress hormones and blood pressure down as well as pets in real life?

My cats are yakking a lot. I need to work in hairball fighting kibble.

Chip Ahoy said...

Are you momentarily forgetting your position as a dog? In that pack, you are number 1 and Zeus is number 2, the giant baby a distant number 3 or 4 after Ruby. It's fluid, but not that fluid.

YoungHegelian said...

When I was a kid, all the St. Bernard's I knew were terrible slobberers. There was a constant dribble of saliva from their mouths.

Some years ago, I heard that the newer "varieties" of St. Bernard were "slobberless".

Is this true about St. Bernards now? Does Abby slobber?

edutcher said...

Evrything in Doggiedom is hierarchical. We learned that the hard way.

pm317 said...

That Abby is one beautiful girl, big girl. Can we expect any romance between Zeus and Abby? He would be a cradle robber if that were to happen.

JAL said...

Again. I love the rug.

Chip Ahoy said...

for a meal of blue crab risotto, lobster Thermidor, sea bass and the like.

That was the Republican's and Obama's dinner. It doesn't really matter, but ...

Risotto is boiled rice or steamed rice that is knocked around so that the surface starch comes off and forms a sauce with the liquid to your desired thickness. Then the crab bits added at the very end so they don't actually cook together, unless you use crab juice for part of the liquid and that can be purchased separately where you buy sardines.

The Thermidore is the same thing as Newburg. They copied it when a play came out. But there was nothing to copy because everybody was doing the same thing already because when you get down to it, there's only a few things you can actually do. Basically, a sauce of butter and cream, and brandy. So a perfectly ordinary everyday thing where one would use wine and those things for an instant sauce. Some recipes also call for cheese, gruyere usually, and then baked briefly to melt it, and that right there can be item A for an argument against the proscription against cheese being put with seafood.

I determined that rule came about because people who live by the sea know the thing seafood has going for it is its simplicity and it's unprocessed freshness, and cheese is the opposite of that, time-consuming, for long term food storage, and exceedingly processed sometimes, almost never fresh, an unnatural opposite that doesn't do.

And sea bass, eh, you sweat some sliced onions, and chop up a tomato and sauce with olive oil, fish skin side first to crisp it, then flip once, then off the pan in minutes. Extremely easy and fast. Again, butter, olive oil, and wine are perfect to lift everything off the pan and onto a plate so that everything stays wet except the crispy fish skin. And lemon to cut through the fat and brighten the whole plate.

But I will have first carefully felt the filet with my fingertips along the grain to feel for any errant bones, and remove them.

That will be $57.00, thank you. I just made up that price, I have no idea what I must charge you. You'll have a salad too. A very good one.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Are we to treat dog posts as cafe posts?

Dog fringe posts.

Sim said...

Sorry i couldn't resist to say this, but i love the furniture.

Meade said...

Abby doesn't slobber... although, I did... while reading Chip Ahoy's comment.

pm317 said...

Risotto is boiled rice or steamed rice that is knocked around so that the surface starch comes off and forms a sauce with the liquid to your desired thickness.

Best written description of risotto. Chip Ahoy, you should become a food writer or something.

pm317 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bagoh20 said...

"[Obamacare regulations] are now over 20,000 pages and measures 7′ 2.5″. These are all the Obamacare regulations published in the Federal Register up through last week. Then last Friday they added another 828 pages."

Anyone who voted for Obama either time can never make up for the disaster resulting from that simple act. I still apologize for my Carter vote 3 decades ago, and he lost.

bagoh20 said...

Abby would know better.

edutcher said...

For those who react to visual stimuli, McConnell's office has a representation of those 20,000 pages.

Titus said...

Althouse and Meade, I love the fact that you are enjoying the love and relationships with amazing dogs.

Plus, that Saint Bernard has amazing eyes and is so fucking beautiful.

Titus said...

Althouse and Meade, I love the fact that you are enjoying the love and relationships with amazing dogs.

Plus, that Saint Bernard has amazing eyes and is so fucking beautiful.

Julie C said...

yeah, yeah, yeah, those dogs are cute. But let's talk about the Uggs!! People love to hate on Uggs, until they get their feet into them, and then watch out! The greatest treat for the feet ever invented.

Remember how George Costanza wanted to wrap himself in velvet? That's only because Uggs hadn't yet been invented (or imported).

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

We better watch, or is that Not watch, where and what we say on line.

New York's so-called "cannibal cop" has been found guilty of plotting to kidnap the young women he had fantasised about eating, after four days of jury deliberations in a US federal court.

Gilberto Valle, 28, faces a possible life sentence. The case has riveted the Big Apple tabloid press and raised questions about freedom of speech. No women were harmed, and Valle's defense argued he merely had disturbing fantasies.

Sentencing has been set for June 19 in the Manhattan federal court.

JAL said...

The dogs are good, too.

Abby is gorgeous.

Zeus handsome. Great feet.

MikeD said...

I'm confused, a somewhat permanent condition, who's dogs these 2 are. Video and stills suggest part of Anne/Meade family yet, intro says neighbor dogs?
Yeah,I know,"unknown" perfect identity for a lurker.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Tax payer funded health care. Enjoy.
Whatdayaknow? Obama and Reid are attempting to hike tax rats again. Gotta pay for our "free" health care. The bonus will be when we have to ask permission for basic treatments and procedures and are told to "just take a pain pill."

Government knows best.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

who's dogs these 2 are. Video and stills suggest part of Anne/Meade family yet, intro says neighbor dogs?

Abby and Zeus are fictional characters written almost like real people.

Anonymous said...

RE: "yeah, yeah, yeah, those dogs are cute. But let's talk about the Uggs!! People love to hate on Uggs, until they get their feet into them, and then watch out! The greatest treat for the feet ever invented."

Unless you are Patrick Stewart and Wil Wheaton is working the toe knuckles.

JAL said...

@ unknown

Meade has a history of using.

Other people's dogs for company and recreation, that is.

All the joy, none of the vet bills ; -)

Seriously -- five years back who would have thought the Professor would be playing with hounds in her house?

The Hounds of Meadehouse!

(Lucky neighbors, too. "Hey -- let's send the dogs over to Laurence and Anne's for the weekend!")

Ernst Stavro Blofeld said...

Have you ever heard of dog politics? Neither have I. Dogs... don't have politics. They're very... brutal. No compassion, no compromise. We can't trust the dog.

Zeus would like to be the first dog politician.

Guildofcannonballs said...

"And so it goes: two and two make three, the shortest distance between two points is a crooked line, good is bad and bad is good, and from this morass we are to extract a workable, enlightened synthesis to govern our thoughts and our actions, for today we are educated men." - WFB

Today We Are Educated Women, so Nothing Else Matters.

Thank you James and Lars and the rest of the boys.

Kensington said...

The Democrats should pass legislation that requires dogs to treat each other as equals. This whole alpha thing is so non-progressive.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Oh, and uh, thanks Bill.

https://cumulus.hillsdale.edu/Buckley/

Guildofcannonballs said...

mo·rass
/məˈras/NounAn area of muddy or boggy ground.
A complicated or confused situation.


Synonymsbog - marsh - swamp - quagmire - slough - mire - fen

Speaking as notquiteunBuckley I don't believe the dictionary.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Unable to do a proper critique of the biggest of Lebowski fans (may Dudeness be upon them) for reasons too self-indulgent to specify at this point, I question how many have questioned Ethan's Yale experience?

Is up down and black white?

Guildofcannonballs said...

The Mr. Crack Emcee was correct in that Obama doesn't think of himself as God and yet Romney's religion demands that Romney does involves such levels of fuckedness that by God it just seems designed to make bitter those who deny it.

Guildofcannonballs said...

To reach the level of Jesus like Mitt and maybe from what I have heard Marco want to do and believe, really makes me an uneducated bigot worthy of scorn.

I really am sorry I am a Mormon bigot; at least I am not practicing anything so I am not a hypocrite.

Oh shit...............

What if that makes me a bigot in and of itself?

Guildofcannonballs said...

lev·el
/ˈlevəl/Noun
A position on a real or imaginary scale of amount, quantity, extent, or quality.


Adjective

Having a flat and even surface.


VerbGive a flat and even surface to.


Synonym
noun. plane - standard - grade - degree

adjective. even - flat - plane - equal - smooth - plain - horizontal
verb. even - flatten - equalize

Nichevo said...

Unlike you the real WFB spoke fucking English. Was good at it too. Try it sometime.

Guildofcannonballs said...

if it were an astute observation then why, when describing it, would I trust someone who uses the term "astute observation?"

Guildofcannonballs said...

Were I to search "Mormon" at https://cumulus.hillsdale.edu/Buckley/ God would bless my heart and thus I shall do so.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Son,

Have you considered you got The Larry Sanders Show canned?

Well, then....

Guildofcannonballs said...

Pie-in-the-sky hopeful dreamings becoming something not quite protein wisdom is my hope.

I would never, in real time, attempt to assuage the greatness of the one and only ProteinWisdom.com and outlaws exactly and precisely thus.

I am not made of that.

Darcy said...

The dogs are so beautiful. I lost mine and I don't think I'll own another. The idea of borrowing dogs is appealing!

Notquiteun...have a lot of trouble getting the faintest idea of what you express at this blog, but I keep trying. Linking to Hillsdale is a plus.

Mel said...

My excellent dog died a week ago. I can't imagine choosing another, but I know that by the time my kids get out of school, I will have done so. I've got to have a dog. I love them and I've taught my kids to love them.
My dog, by the way, was firmly #3 in the pecking order - helping control the 4 kids with authority they never thought to question. My guess is that my college kid will be seen as a guest by the next one and my 16 year old son will be #3. He was just beginning to get the dog to submit to him some of the time.

rhhardin said...

Speaking of shoes, Imus's Lou Ruffino, watching the Pope smoke coverage, announces that the new Pope is Punxsutawney Phil.

campy said...

Anyone who voted for Obama either time can never make up for the disaster resulting from that simple act.

McCain would have been worse.

Rusty said...

Chip Ahoy @ 7:54

Damn you! Damn you to hell!

Kensington said...

"McCain would have been worse."
==========

How can anyone consider ObamaCare and still insist that McCain would have been worse?

campy said...

How can anyone consider ObamaCare and still insist that McCain would have been worse?

Because McCain would have gone along with PelosiCare.

Shanna said...

People love to hate on Uggs, until they get their feet into them, and then watch out!

I don't like the uggs everybody was wearing when they first became popular but a few years ago when I was going to Scotland in the winter I wanted some warm boots and tried on some uggs with a different sole - they are the most comfortable boots ever! And still comfortable, after several years, although the suede doesn't look so nice anymore. I wear them in snow.

lemondog said...

Abby poignantly asks: "Will you love me the same when I am 150 pounds"?

lemondog said...

BTW did you see the photo of the golfer who sank a putt along with himself?

And no, it wasn't the current WH resident.

bagoh20 said...

"McCain would have been worse."

See, that's how you made that stupid mistake the in the first place - by ignoring clear evidence, and replacing it with speculation.

AllenS said...

I'll agree that McCain would have been bad. I don't think that he would have been worse. There is however, that possibility. I can't stand the man.

rcocean said...

"How can anyone consider ObamaCare and still insist that McCain would have been worse?"

How can anyone know whether McCain would've 'reached across the aisle" and given us McCain-Reid Care? He's a maverick baby, and the NYT is his "base".

rcocean said...

We know for certain he would've gotten together with Reid/Pelosi and given us "Anmesty" and probably gone to war with Iran, Russia, Syria, Libya, and Luxembourg in his first year.