Feature a Guest – Writing 101 – Day 19

As a bit of a loner in my writing I didn’t want to ‘reach out’ to another blogger for an interview. Although this type of blog post seems to be popular it’s not for me. I don’t read them either on blogs, in newspapers or magazines.

So today I have decided to interview Millie, my oldest Poodle.

“So Millie, how old are you?”

“Well, firstly, thanks for the invitation. It’s a great honour to be featured on your blog. To answer your question, you should never ask a lady her age, it’s rude, but I will admit to being past the first flush of youth”.

“Sorry I didn’t mean to be rude, can I rephrase the question? When did you come to live with your present family?”

“I was four and was being looked after in a rescue centre, it was a nice place but they had so many others to care for. That was almost ten years ago now. Oh damn!”.

“Do you know anything about your real family?”.

“Well I know that they were originally a cross breed between a German ‘Puddle Hound’ and a ‘Hungarian Water Dog’. They have been around since before the fifteenth century.”

“I thought you were known as ‘French Poodles'”. 

“That’s a common misconception. The French adopted the breed as it’s national dog but the origins are as I said before.”

“So you are a Miniature Poodle but there are other sizes, why is that”?. 

“The Standard Poodle is the largest and was primarily a retriever. Their love of water and type of coat meant that, whilst they are strong swimmers and so useful for retrieving game from water, the coat became soggy and it weighed them down. Some actually drowned as their coats became too heavy, so they cut off any the excess fur. Just leaving enough around sensitive areas like leg joints to keep them warm in the water, hence the ‘Poodle Cut’ we see today.                                                                        The Miniature Poodle was bred for Truffle Hunting as their paws did much less damage to the fungus than pigs or larger dogs. They were commonly used in England, Spain, France and Germany for this purpose. I still like to hunt things, although I’m a bit slow to catch them now, but I have had my moments.                                                                    The Toy Poodle was bred as lap dogs for Victorian English ladies and French Ladies of high standing”.

“So thank you for your time today”

“It’s been a pleasure but isn’t it time we went out for a walk”?