My Life As Dogg Snoop

 Living in our Toronto condo has been a great success. I love the view, the building itself (especially the gym) and our neighbours appear to be friendly. The management and staff of the condo are very professional and likable. Getting back to the residents for a moment, I have made a few observations. Hey, I'm a flâneur, it's what I do! Here goes:

- there are virtually no children living in the building.

- there seem to be a lot of well dressed men in the building who go everywhere together...brothers??

- there are a lot of dog owners in the building.

- generally, the dogs are better dressed and groomed than I am.

I've been fixating on the dogs all winter. It seemed like every day I'd get on the elevator with a dog and a dog owner. Talking about their dog was a good way to break the ice with the dog owner. I announced to Wendy, sometime back in the depths of winter, that I was going to start collecting and recording the names of the condo hounds, then detail my finding in a future blog. The future is now.

I was curious to know what names people would give to their dogs. When I was a boy all dogs were given names like Fido, Spike, Kujo, Maggie and Muggins. Also, when I was a boy, dogs had fur and didn't need to be dressed in goose down or the fur of another animal. Take a look at the dog pictured to the left. It's got a fur collared coat on! Is this not akin to a sheep eating cow brains, or pig eating a hot dog, or a bear posing 'seductively' on a bear skin rug?

Can't we have one blog without the mention of bears? You know I'm terrified of them!

Sorry. I'll bear that in mind for future blogs. So, returning to the hound list, here are the names that I (we) managed to acquire: Toby, Chester, Apple, Pippin, Abigail, Molly, Cam and Edan. Gathering the names became quite comical as it quickly turned into a competition between Wendy and me to see who could discover the dog's name before the elevator booted us out at the 17th or ground floor. Typically we would get in the elevator, spot the dog, give each other the evil eye, and then the game began. Wendy is naturally more talented at generating chit chat with strangers but I reached into the depths of my soul, took out my stone heart and used it to crack a portal in the protective shell around me. I'd say we tied as investigative reporters/competitors.

The names we gathered were satisfactorily amusing and original. Most names fit the dogs rather well. Chester, the English bulldog was the most aptly named in a traditional sense. Apple seemed like a fitting name for a chihuahua, or the darling child of Über celebs.

What really got me going was the lengths to which people would dress their dogs.

Fashionable booties, lest Apple should tread in other dogs' doodies. 

Cable knit sweaters. Goose down vests. Lap dogs. <insert howls of laughter at the absurdity of it all> Dog store owners must be lap dancing their way to the bank with the profits made off the backs of fashionably hot designer dogs. Hot dogs, indeed. Admittedly, it was a cold winter, but putting a naturally furry beast in a fur or feathered or sheepish coat? C'mon. I think dog owners have good intentions, but they've deluded themselves into thinking that they're the parents of bare skinned, helpless babies.

When the apocalypse happens, the humans will die off. We deserve it for what we've done to our pets. The planet will be over-run with cockroaches, dogs and perhaps Ben Mulroney (his greasy hair and Teflon exoskeleton will protect him from the fallout). There will be no one to put booties on the dogs. No one to knit cable sweater for them. No one to put their legs through arm holes, or their arms through leg holes(??). They'll be just fine without us, perhaps even better off. They won't have to deal with the psychological humiliation of being dressed like yuppie puppies. They will run like proud wolves once again, no longer looking like leashed dingo dung in sheep's finery.