12/16: French chef and dog
 

http://cellar.org/pictures/frenchchefanddog.jpg

The chef's name is Delphine Grapperon, the dog's name is Maude, the restaurant's name is "Le Royal", and they're in Barbizon. The background is a painting of the town's main street.

I had mixed feelings about this one. I was going to save it for an image backlog day, which we haven't had in a long time.

But as I prepared to put up the image I had picked for today, it occurred to me that I just like this picture. I just like it.

In France, dogs are allowed to accompany you in restaurants and all over. And I think that's how it oughta be. You oughta be able to have your dog anywhere you are.

Yes and no. I will say I like dogs, but not all of them. Dogs are as varied as people are.

Recently our landlord had some construction done and one of the crew had a dog. It was tame, well mannered and trained to stay on the job site. I like work dogs as it were. Some mom & pop stores have store dogs that just chill while business is going on and thats cool.

But I don't think I would want to be avoiding yippy lap dogs and reckless retrievers at the market. Thats just me. So in closing, if you have a cool dog, it can come along with you, otherwise forget it.

Then the problem is, who defines "cool dog"? All owners think their dog is cool. All owners think their dog should come with 'em everywhere.

I personally am more of a cat person. We have two cats - mine is Tinkerbell, and my sister's is Shadow. Tinkerbell is about the most mellow cat that I've ever met - she's perfectly calm and tame under most circumstances. I think she'd be a good cat to carry around. Shadow, on the other hand, would be a mess. He likes to do his own thing, no matter what. And, of course, dogs are the same way.

Reminds me of that police dog pic we had a while back - with the cat walking in front of all those dogs, and they're just sitting there. If your dog can do THAT, then you can bring it along :)

Store dogs - and store cats too - are just great. One of the local pet stores is also a doggie-day care and boards dogs, and some of the dogs get to stay out front with the customers if they are well-behaved. So you get to meet different dogs every time.

Most Petsmarts are like that. They have a bunch of animals that they take care of and if they're well behaved, they get to roam the store. It's pretty cool. There used to be a place in Westminster (Carroll County, MD) called "Record & Book Heaven" and they sold... records and books. And tapes & cds. But they had a store cat named Angel and she was just the sweetest thing :) She'd lounge around on the records and whatnot, and since my sister and I went there so often, lots of times she'd come up to us. It was pretty cool. Yeah, you gotta love store cats :)

There's enough people with obviously poor control over their *children* (much less side-stream tobacco smoke and cellphone usage) that I don't even want to think about dogs in a public eating place.

A couple of places I used to frequent in St. Louis were like that. One had a cat, the other a dog. I thought it was cool as hell, but there IS one problem. There are a ton of people out there that suffer from allergies, myself being one of them. For some, it is mild. But for others, it can be downright miserable. I love cats, but I am allergic as hell to them. Thankfully, Claritin has me covered. Man...just thinking about a cat right now is making my eyes water.

My other concern of course would be if it were in a food setting. I just do not believe that a pet should be in that setting, not knowing what it could have picked up outside. Most restaurants ban pets anyway, except for seeing-eye dogs.

Cats
 

We had a store in my neighborhood that had store CATS - lots of them - usually about 6 or 7 at a time. The woman who owned the store ran an cat rescue service. She usually had 10 or so more in the back ready for adoption. People went to the store to see the cats

She got married, and moved to California - the new owner has no cats (after she said she would keep some of them) - I haven't been back.

MOST people who bring their dogs with them everywhere KNOW if their dog behaves - in fact, I think that bring your dog everywhere tends to make them behave.

Me? I'm owned by 2 cats, and would LOVE to get a dog.... Maybe next year

That's true - if you take your dog places, your dog gets more socialized and used to being with people, and is more likely to have bad behaviors corrected.

Re: Cats
 

I don't think the inconsiderate behavior of some folks--parents, and others--in public places like restauraunts and theaters is a failure to *know* if their dog/child/smoke/cellphone behaves but rather a failure to *care*. There's an unfortunate difference between knowing *if* your dog behaves and knowing *that* your dog behaves. :-)

Allergies
 

As somebody who is deathly allergic to cats... if I ever entered a place that was not a store appropriate for cats (read: anything else other than a petstore or veteranarian's office), and there was a cat there, I would probably go see the owner of the store and ask that he request that person and cat to leave immediately.

Just me.

-mike

Re: Allergies
 

Mike,
You have to understand the store, and the previous owner (They were HER cats)

The store had a lot of cat trinkets, but was really a "New Age" type gift shop - Not totally new age, but that's the general idea. Definate nitch market, and she ran the store to please herself. The store smelled like cat - Like I said, there were typically 8-10 cats in the store at any one time (along with one or two lounging on the sidewalk in good weather)

It was "the store with the cats". Everyone KNEW it, in fact they did cat rescue out of the store. If you wanted to adopt a cat, walk into the store, get interviewed by the owner (to see IF she would give you a cat), and you could probably adopt one of the cats (except for "her" cats)

People came from all over the area just to go pet the cats, and make a doanation

Quite a store