Wimey's Blog:Diary of a Manhattan Bloodhound

Entry # 18
June 1, 2007

Hello Everyone. It’s me, Wimsey. Well summer is in full swing here in the Big Apple-- I have always wondered why they call it the Big Apple. Now while I would probably eat a big apple, especially if my human Maria or her friend Elizabeth were eating one, I can think of many more appealing things to eat a big one of. From this Hound’s perspective New York should be called something like the Big Pizza or the Big Piece of Stolen Food or something. Maybe even the Big Grom Gelato (seriously, I have been spending an insane amount of time, along with the rest of the upper West Side, standing in line for a small dish of the stuff; Maria says buying me $5 dishes of gelato is starting to total the GDP of a small, developing nation). I did even consider the fact that New York should be called the Big Liver (Elizabeth is always bragging that she has one of those), but as no one else seems to actually like liver, it is not really an appropriate Hound food. Hounds enjoy their food most when 1) someone else is eating it and 2) they are not supposed to have it. In fact I should think about opening up Wimsey’s Hound House Restaurant:

Waiter: Welcome to Wimsey’s Hound House. You can’t have any food.


Hound: But these other customers seem to be eating food.

Waiter: I know, and it’s all quite delicious, but you can’t have any.

Hound: Well what is everybody eating?

Waiter: The table just to your left is eating our special 24 oz. T-bone steak, cooked rare; if you prefer your meat cooked slightly more, the table next to them has it cooked medium. The table behind you is eating roast chicken with a chestnut and chive stuffing—always an excellent choice. If Sir prefers fish, the table to your right is eating wild king salmon poached in dill sauce. The table just beyond that is eating our own stone hearth pizza with goat cheese and artichokes. Does any of that sound appealing?

Hound: Yes, I think I would like the rare steak.

Waiter: No. You can’t have it.

Hound: But it smells delicious and they can’t possibly eat that much steak.

Waiter: Stop begging.

Hound: But I’m hungry; it’s been a whole hour since my last meal. How can I get the food?

Waiter: You have to steal it. It tastes better that way. Just be careful of table number 9—he resource guards. If you want dessert, you can steal some from Tables 3, 7 and 10.

Hound: What an innovative dining concept—even better than pretending that at the Olive Garden you belong to an extended Italian family.

Waiter: Enjoy your meal. That will be $65.99. Dessert is extra.

Now although humans complain about these covetous Houndly behaviors, they have exactly the same tendencies. Here in New York City there are restaurants with no telephone numbers and sometimes even no signs— the more they won’t let you in, the more people want to get in. (“oooh, the maitre d’ sent us to the bar for two hours where the bartender was too busy to serve us and now our waiter is fantastically rude. Eat quickly, though, they said we could only have the table for 15 minutes. What a wonderful place! And I only had to wait a year for reservations.”)

So humans beg, too. They just do it differently. Anyway, summer in the city is loads of fun; they turn on the fountains and like so many other enjoyable activities, it is fun for me and dangerous for those holding my leash (“La, la la—oh look isn’t Bethesda Fountain beautiful. La la I think I’ll just wander over there and sniff something”. Then, a quick lunge and it’s all “Eeek Eeek Eeek! Help! Wimsey’s going in!”). The summer definitely brings out the puppy in me, but then according to my humans it never really left. I can still unravel a toilet paper roll with the best of them and create those terrifying ominous silences. Elizabeth is threatening to put a GPS tag on me.

Now humans seem to think that youth is a highly desirable attribute in themselves but not in a high spirited Hound. Such a double standard. It is the same with other admirable traits such as strength (the better to drag you into fountains), agility (useful in reaching food placed in inconvenient locations), speed (the mouth is quicker than the hand when it comes to desirable items), intelligence (OK, not the regular kind, but the kind that lets us figure out how to get what we want), charm (I’ll lick your face if you buy me another gelato..), a trim appearance (looks how thin Wimsey looks—he’ll never win any ribbons). And even special talents, like my Wimsey School of Massage Therapy. Now Elizabeth periodically spends money to get all these excruciatingly painful Qui Gong massages that are supposed to be so good for you. These are the ones where they press all the painful points in your body (you know the spot where sensitive nerves are bundled together). Well as it happens, I have a natural gift for finding these points. But when I jab, say my pointy elbow, into one of these points and then lean all 125 of my pounds into it, she doesn’t pay me money (although I would charge in gelato) she just screams. And continues to scream throughout the massage process. So I do question the consistency of human thought processes. We hounds do not understand the conditional nature of human beliefs (like it’s good to be handsome, but then every one notices Wimsey and not us).

But anyway, this summer I am making big fashion news! I expect to be asked to pace down the catwalk any day. As you may know, I was shown last weekend at Freehold, NJ, where I picked up something better than a ribbon—a summer coat! Yes, I Wimsey am a fashion forward design innovator. A company called SherBert Stuff (www.sherbertstuff.com) makes these coats with bands of cooling material that are positioned along the major blood vessels in my body, thus preventing me from overheating. I look absolutely stunning in it and better yet, the coat requires weekly soaking to keep the cooling material active. I love it when I can add more tasks to my human’s lives that involve me—I am the unltimate high maintenance Hound and now I have a high maintenance coat! And wait until I make my appearance on the streets of New York—if Maria and Elizabeth think they have problems with people yelling because I still have my testicles, just wait until I am out and about in a coat in sweltering City weather! They will probably be accused of abusing me which will necessitate the buying of extra cups of cooling gelato in order to prove otherwise.



The other great thing about the coat is that it is huge! Maria neglected to realize that she had no actual place to store it as closets are apparently deleterious to the health of the coat. The instructions suggest hanging it over a fence—well that created some consternation, I can tell you (“A fence? I don’t know. I don’t think my apartment has a fence. Does yours?”) Well, in the end Elizabeth said she’d just put it in her “mud room”—this is really just the foyer in her apartment, but having a mud room gives her the illusion that she is part of the Horse and Hounds set. And of course the whole mud room concept was necessitated by me, as it contains my giant Vari-Kennel, cavalettis, stinky hound clothes and other assorted instruments of Hound Control. And now it contains my giant chemically activated summer cooling coat. In fact, it has become apparent that I, Wimsey, have become an Expansionist Power. I am sure that Karl Marx would approve—Houndism is a far superior vehicle for world domination than communism could ever hope to be. The Dictatorship of the Hound having far more appeal than the Dictatorship of the Proletariat: I can even publish a little black and tan book called “Quotations from Chairman Wimsey”:

“From each Human, according to his ability; to each Hound, according to his need” (this means you give us everything, we give you drool).

“The theory of Houndism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property and turn it over to the Hound” (it all belongs to us in any case).

“Hounds of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your leashes.” (We pay no attention to these anyway).

“The Hound is the opiate of the masses.” (We give you the illusion of bliss and you get nothing done when we are about).

“Social progress can be measured by the social position of the Hound.”

The little black and tan book will also contain important slogans from the Houndist Manifesto, such as: “If you have it, I want it,” “Su casa es mi casa” and “What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is also mine.”

But as a Benevolent Supreme Hound, I am sure I will be ably assisted by my fellow canines:

For Secretary of State---the Golden Retriever (“Hello! Can I lick your face? Please accept this stuffed toy as a token of my nation's esteem?”)

For Secretary of Defense---The Pit Bull (“I prefer to be known as the Secretary of War.”)

For Secretary of the Treasury--- The Rottweiler (“Don’t even think of coming near this money.”)

For Secretary Agriculture-- the Labrador (“I’m the Secretary of Food, right?”)

For Secretary of Energy---the Jack Russell (too busy spinning to talk)

For Secretary of Education-- The Poodle (“I may have a silly hair cut, but I am smarter than you.”)

For Secretary of Transportation---the Siberian husky (“I envision a transcontinental dog sled linking this great nation…”)


For Secretary of Homeland Security--- the Akita (“Make my day”)

For Secretary of the Interior: The Weimaraner (“I get to hunt everything in those red states, right?”)


Such a lot to do, and so little time to do it in. Fortunately my activities this evening will not include Wimsey Bath Night as I am not being shown again until June 10th (Yorktown Heights). And speaking of showing, now whilst I didn’t do anything actually disgraceful at the last show (unless you count a lengthy pre-show ring concert) I didn’t win anything either. So what’s the point in behaving?

Until next time,

Supreme Leader Wimsey

“All Power to the Hound”