Migration complete!

I had said it, I'm already tired of Blogger and was planning on a good old change, and now this is it. All the posts have been transferred (granted, there weren't that many to start with).

The new URL of this blog is http://vulcain.yzabel.net. Have a good read!

*stabs Blogger*

Okay, I'm going to move this blog to another address soon!

It's nothing that Blogger has done, said or whatever... I'm just not at ease with this interface anymore :( It has crept on me to the point where I absolutely can't push myself to post, while I'd actually *have* lots to tell, and this speaks to me of a need to change.

I have this new domain and site that I want to use to reorganize some of my blogs and other websites, and it provides very easy and straightforward installs of WordPress through Fantastico, so this will actually give me the opportunity to finally see what the hype is all about!

I'll be back in a few here to announce when the move is complete. For anyone who was following this blog, sorry for the bother. Vulcain simply deserves much more than some half-heartedly updated blog that gets on my nerves...

The Morning After...

This picture was taken on the boat, the morning after the puppies' birth. Of course, they couldn't open their eyes yet, and none of them was bigger than my hand. They already looked funny, I think.

This is the only one I have of Vulcain at that age (the black pup in the middle of the... err... pile?). I don't have many pictures of that period, and I regret it. Besides, at the time, they kind of all looked like each other, and it was hard to tell who was who, for someone like me who had never been in contact with dogs much, lest puppies.

The story of a birth

Vulcain's not a pure-breed dog. In fact, he's very much what is usually called a mongrel. His father is (apprently) a Beauceron, and his mother a half-german Shepherd, half-something else. Vulcain however looks quite a lot like a beauceron too: black-and-tan hair and, most of all, like the instructor at the training classes told me: "he's got the and the balls of a beauceron!" This has stuck to him, I'm afraid.

The thing is, if i'm feeling so close to him, it's probably also because I saw him being born. We had offered a 3-days trip on a boat to my boyfriend's mother for her birthday, in 2004; on the day we were scheduled to depart, about one hour before jumping into the cars, Laika (the mother) "decided" to have her pups. Now, we're not a family to break into tears at such a sight, and Laika isn't a fragile little thing, on the contrary: she thus had to finish her job on the boat itself, which she did in a pretty calm manner. The first of the puppies was born around 3pm, the last one came around midnight, once we were finished playing cards at the boat's table.

This no doub creates bonds. We saw the little ones whine and moan at 1-day old, held us in the palms of our hands. In the following weeks, we saw them grow up, open their eyes for the first time, play, get potty-trained--all the shmuck. There were eight of them: a jolly colony of three males and five females.

Perhaps this is why Vulcain had so much ease adapting to our house--this, and being happy to get out of the shelter. There's much to tell about this, and we still storm about his formers owners, months after, but... this is coming soon in a blog entry near you!

What does he look like?

A blog about my beloved dog wouldn't be totally about him without a few pictures. Thus, here are two; they were taken shortly after Vulcain's arrival in our home, when he was 9 months old.

No gift pets

This article is a little old; however, it reminded me a lot of an IRL conversation I had not long ago with my parents, so I'm going to post it here. Its title? "No Christmas Puppies, Please!"

Indeed, many advertisers and artists have noticed this connection. Images of cozy family Christmas mornings often include scenes of floppy-eared puppies peering innocently out of a colorful gift box, their eyes wide with wonderment and awe. As the scene continues, the puppy stumbles preciously over mounds of gift wrappings, to the great amusement of delighted children who rush to hug the youngster and receive big wet puppy-slurps in return. Mom and Dad smile knowingly in the background as the true meaning of life is celebrated before their eyes. What could possibly be wrong with this picture?

Nothing. As art, as fiction, or as advertisement, it captures a lot of the symbolic spirit of the Christmas celebration perfectly. The appeal of this scene is like that of Norman Rockwell's paintings. As advertisement, it works. It sells products, even those totally unrelated to dogs or to Christmas. As fiction it warms people's hearts. What's wrong, though, is what happens when real people try to re-enact this warm loving scene in their own homes with a real, living puppy playing the role of a prop in this mythic family life-drama.

While there were no plans for Christmas puppies showing up, we had been talking of pups as gifts (for birthdays, for instance), and of the not-so-nice experience one of my grand-aunts had with a "gift-dog". Her close family had gone to a refuge to pick a dog, thinking it'd be a nice surprise for her birthday, but what got in their heads on that fateful day, I really don't know. She was about 75 at the time, and they found nothing better than to take a big dog for her—no specific breed, simply a... well, the dog was big, he needed much exercise every day, and thiswasn't exactly the "quietly-walk-the-dog" kind of exercise. Results of the "gift": he was too strong for her, she fell, she broke her wrist. Happy birthday.

This example has sure taught me not to ever envision giving a pet for a gift—whether a dog, a cat, or any other kind of pet, one has to be sure that the person getting her will want one, as well as know how to take care of her.

If these conditions aren't filled... fuggedaboutit.

Welcome to Vulcain's Lair

Linked by another blog, I was reading this article from the NY Times this past week-end, complaining that there aren't nearly enough blogs about dogs on the world wide web. With which I can only disagree, but perhaps because it made me felt like proving a point (even if I'll likely be the only one to read said "point"), I started to somewhat muse about a little "dog blog".

Then I looked at my own dog, at his deep brown eyes, and I knew that somehow, this had to also be about him.

So, here it is. Vulcain's his name, and this is Vulcain's Lair. He's a very funny dog on many accounts, and he's worth a blog just for himself (well, almost—I'll probably feel the need at times to open my mouth about other dogs-related matters here).

Welcome to this little world of ours!