If you’ve been reading carefully over the past few days, you probably caught my reference to The Girlfriend’s dog in my Gary Coleman entry. He’s a toy poodle — Anne’s dog, that is, not Gary Coleman — which means he’s about the size of your average toaster. Small by my standards of doghood, but not so tiny as to render him a useless ornament that needs to be carried about in some vapid young heirress’s expensive handbag. Oddly enough, this particular poodle — whose name is Rusty — worships the very ground I walk on, despite the fact that I tease him mercilessly about how girly he looks. (To Anne’s credit, she has his fur cut in a “kennel clip,” i.e., the same length all over, rather than one of those ridiculously froofy show-dog cuts. But he still looks pretty unmasculine when we first pick him up from the groomer, with all his curl blow-dried into fluffy submission and little bows stuck in his ears or topknot.)

I think it must be in the nature of the poodle breed to put up with a basic lack of dignity. Unlike other dogs of my acquaintance, who’ve been known to pout like a scolded child at the slightest hint of mockery, Rusty seems to be entirely without ego. Why else would he allow the humans in his life to do something like this to him?

Yep, no pride at all, not that pooch…