The question of the week is:

Who is the most cruel? The gods or the dogs?

Please post your comments in the comment box below.
You can also check the youtube "teaser" for the book
Teaser for Fifteen Dogs

as well as the longer CBC podcast on Ideas with Tom Kennedy.
CBC Podcast

Find the poem for your dog among these 3 poems, and feel free to add yours:

Is the name hidden Max, Roxy, Treble, Frank, Scarlett, Ozzie, Cindy, Billy, Freckles, Bunny, Gibson, Duke, or Indy?
Please respond in the comment box and/or add your own poem (you could win treats for your dog!!!!).

1.
The elders of the pack,
the wise grizzled ones never ask
themselves the question:
"to be or not to be".
"Listen, they say instead, listen
to the wind and to the river! Look, they add,
look at the fields and the sky and the clouds!
Because you are all that surrounds you!"

2.
When I decide to rest, I look
for shelter under a clump of cedars
because, even in the darkness of dusk, 
my eyes will shine, two piercing lights
that could betray my presence until
I fall asleep and my shadow melts 
in the shadows of the night.

3.
Some have seen me galloping by,
and afterwards, they could not say if
I was a wolf, or a deer, or a ghost.
I run through the night
rebel without a cause,
my dusty coat shimmering in the moonlight.

I took your challenge, Tricia:

Here are two poems for your dogs:

My humans had a party today
With famous guests:  Justin T.
and a certain Madame de...
Glasses of Champagne, laughter...
I licked a puddle on the floor,
it smelled like old apples, delicious
fruits rotting on the ground, after they fall...
Blurry eyes, trembling paws,
I fell on the way to my bed.
Tullamore Dew, they call this brew,
Irish Whiskey.
What did I do?


My human likes poetry,
opera, drama,
guitar and flamenco.
Her music makes me sing,
makes me howl, and she laughs...
so I howl louder because
I like to make her happy.

From our resident poet. Tricia, a contribution to the Dog Poetry Challenge:


What Rhymes with Flu?

Oh, to live up to your designation,
Resident poet,
Embedding my dogs’ names in gleaming verse
just so I could show it.

But despite my best efforts
(the fistfuls of hair yanked),
The handles Maggie and Douglas
Will not bend to such pranks.

I’ve racked my brain,
(think I’m coming down with a bug),
There’s no friggin’ word in the English language
That ends with the syllable Doug!

So I offer here instead,
My thanks for a great game,
Other entrants, I assure you,
Will be nowhere near as lame.

And just for the record,
My next dogs’ names I’ve already got,
Would it be so wrong to call Westies
Sal and Spot?

- Tricia McCallum

Jon Vacher is our winner, he found that the dogs named were:


Luna,












Teddy,













and Murphy.














Now check Sue Wilson's poems and find her dogs' name hidden in the poetic verses.

Roving endlessly through
the inky darkness
buffeted by wind and sleet.
Desperately seeking warmth
perhaps a discarded morsel to fill the belly,
at minimum access to
shelter from the storm.

With yelps and growls
a growing vocabulary develops
Prince with infinite patience
encourages our voices
to form a chorus
teaching us to echo his sounds
Yet some reject his wisdom.
Poetry is not for us.

Dog Poetry

In the book "Fifteen Dogs", Prince, the dog with the artistic mind, creates oral poems for dogs. The trick is to have the name of the dog hidden in the poem in order to get the dog interested. Here is the poem about Atticus which is, incidentally, the one where it is easiest to find the dog's name (the others are much more challenging):

In the sunny world, with its small
things moving too fast,
I shy away from light
and in the attic cuss the dark.

Here are 3 short poems that Prince could have written, but the dog's names included are dogs belonging to Whitevale residents. 

• Write a comment on this blog if you find them. The price is a special treat for your dog if you are the first one to respond. 
• You can also, if you are inspired, write a poem with your dog's name hidden and post it in the blog to win a special prize for your dog.

1. In the moonlight, your ears stand up:
    the lonely cry of the loon,

    a capella, like an ancient

    sacred song in the dark.    

2. This forest is my hood, my domain,

    my homestead, even.

   Here I can run free

   and find delight in

   the aromatic pestilence of

   mouldy autumn leaves.

3. The crescent moon lights the path.

    No sound is heard but 

    of the leaves

    the trembling murmur.

    Fear not, little one,

    run with your pack!