Cat House Round Up

Aw kitty cats and puppies! I love when bloggers do their pets-on-furniture round-ups. Today is Kitty Kitty Bang Bang's first birthday! We adopted her from a rescue organization eight months ago HERE. She has provided mucho fun for Cholo, and many laughs for us, and so much cuddling. So in honor of KKBB, I give you a round-up of cats in pretty places found at design blossom.

Kitty Kitty Bang Bang is one year old today! photo by Valorie Hart

And once again here is Kitty Kitty Bang Bang on her first birthday - photo by Valorie Hart


   

Please add my new address to your blog list:
http://thevisualvamp.blogspot.com
And please become a Follower 

To See Any Empty Chair Is To Sit On It: The English Dog At Home; PVE And Dogs In Our Decor

By now you might know that I have a first love relationship with English decor. It was the first actual serious decor I attempted. Prior to that I had the original Hollywood glam apartment utilizing Art Deco pieces that were very unwanted and cheap at that time.
I, like many of you, collect picture books, and this one is a favorite, and maybe something you might now find at the beloved Book Thing at Pigtown.
The English Dog At Home (TEDAH) was written by London interior designer Felicity Wigan. At the time of its printing this was her first book, and she was living in Hampshire and London with her husband and three sons.
I am also enamored with the theme of Dogs In Art, so much so that I have been using this dog eared address book for a zillion years (the illustrations are very good, and I promise to do another post on them).
But back to the brilliant TEDAH.
Here we see the ultimate! The Queen, and the Queen Mum with a few of their fourteen Welsh Pembroke Corgis.
I myself had a love affair with a Corgi. I would sing to him: I love you Corgi, to the tune from Porgy and Bess. His official name was Big Drums Jumpstart, but we called him Jumper. His cute girl friend was our first Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Winnie.
English dogs at home, do spend alot of time outdoors. Here's Princess Anne at her home Gatcombe Park with two of her three dogs, Random and Apollo.
This is Lambchop with his owner Sir Tatton Sykes in their home Sledmere. Lambchop appreciates the grand staircase of Sledmere, a home built by Capability Brown.
"Melba is extremely intelligent, she listens with rapt attention to everything I say, understands me perfectly, and unlike so many beautiful girls, does not argue," so says Mr. Peter Cadbury of his majestic Great Dane. She has her own sofa in his study (but don't you love his leather chair!) at Armsworth Hill in Hampshire, and her own five-foot double bed built into the boiler room. Any suggestion that she is pampered or spoiled is treated by her master with the contempt it deserves.
Honington Hall is the perfect English country house. Built during the 17th century, gracefully proportioned, secluded in a park with the river Stour flowing below the garden, and the village church at the door. Sonia, Pinky, Muppet, Alexander, Toya, Buster, Figaro, and Zola Budd have plenty of room to share with the lord of the manor, Sir John Wiggin.
I love this book, not only because there are great dogs to look at, but it is also a slice of a particular aspect of English life.
Here is Diane Nutting, mistress of Chicheley Hall built by Georgian craftsmen for Sir John Chester between 1719 an 1723 (and using 955, 550 bricks), with two of her three Scotties: Matthew and Mollie.
This is Puzzle looking adoringly at her owner Loudon Constantine: "Puzzle always has a ball in her mouth, whether feeding her puppies or sitting on her Queen Anne walnut chair in the drawing room. To see an empty chair is to sit on it."
Who of us dog lovers, doesn't sleep with our pooch? Mind you I said we sleep with them, as opposed to them sleeping with us! Here is Phoebe with Mrs. David Keith. Phoebe is the social secretary.
Here is Humphrey hibernating among the hand made shoes! I personally love the velvet pair with the monogram. Humphrey belongs to Mrs. David Metcalfe.
Lavinia, Duchess of Norfolk has Muffin, Mishka, Mufti, Molly, Mitzi, Millie, Mumbo, Bessie, and Laura! This is her own breed of a canine cocktail of Pekineses, Carin Terrier, Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, and Tibetan Spaniel.
Here is Connor, mascot of The Irish Guards, with Lance Sergeant Brian Rutherford at Wellington Barracks. They are awaiting orders in the colonel's office.
Here we have Jo Jo taking a nap in the home of Lady Saunders, who is known as the television star Katie Boyle.
The working man is also portrayed in TEDAH. Here is Nelson, the dog of Mr. Jack Peach. Mr. Peach and Nelson live in a converted railway carriage. They used to go to sea together, sharing the tiny wheelhouse perched atop the rolling deck, but in old age they are content to let others gather the harvest of the English Channel.
The English Dog At Home comes in hard cover and soft cover. It is 160 pages, each one with a photo of a home and the dog and master who inhabit it (I wish I could scan them all for you!). It is fascinating to see true English interiors, which may seem a bit staid after the razzle dazzle of such great American talent as Mario Buatta.
The people in this book love their dogs, and they tell wonderful stories about them. If you can possibly find this book anywhere, snap it up and add it to your collection HERE
Pictured above is Kelly with his little boy Tom awaiting elevenses in the kitchen basket. Kelly is a mongrel who was raffled for 5o pence in a pub. Today she can hold her own with the best shooting dogs in Yorkshire.

The relationship of the artist and the dog is an ancient connection. This is Mrs. Robert Abel Smith trying to paint Beaufort while two jealous onlookers try to muscle in. Rosie Smith lives in a house with a view of the source of the Thames, and paints Beaufort all the time.
Seeing Rosie Smith in her element, made me think of another wonderful artist, Patricia van Essche, known to us as the blogger PVE. She does many beautiful paintings, among them some very delightful dog (and cat) paintings.
She was recently inspired by my little English dog at home...
...and made this little gem! But did she stop there?
No way! Cholo inspired her to do this painting...
...an image of my closet and dressing room taken for the recent photo shoot done for the October issue of CUE Magazine.
She says she is thinking of doing a book with her dog paintings! I think it's a fantastic idea! You've heard of Elle Decor, now I give you Dogs Decor by PVE!

Dogs In Our Decor - The Photos You Sent

The babies of Cote de Texas

The babies of Optimism and White Paint

I wrote a little story about dogs in our decor HERE
I asked you to please send me photos of your babies. These are the first two I got, and they are just wonderful! Thanks so much!
So get in on the fun and send me a photo of your pets ensconced in your decor!
visualvamp1@yahoo.com

Dogs In Our Decor

My first English dogs
Winnie the Cav and Jumper the Corgi
at the beach house in East Hampton

Our new baby boy Cholo
when we first brought him home to New Orleans

I notice that alot of visual vamps have dogs that match their decor. The Duchess of Windsor had pugs, and The Duchess of Decorno has a pug. Many have a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. The Cav is the most painted dog in art history. The Queen has Corgis, and I find alot of decor people have those too, as well as Bulldogs, English and French. Retro minded vamps have small poodles. Men with taste have Standard Poodles. Then there are the terriers - Jack Russell, Wire Hair, and Scottie. Small to medium sizes prevail, the kinds that look good on the furniture. Some large ones are popular too, Old English Sheep Dogs and Grey Hounds.
Then there are the best ones, the mixed breeds. And also cats, who wrote the book on draping themselves on furniture.
I have a Cav. It's my second one. I had a Welsh Pembroke Corgi too. It's true when I got them I was very much in love with English style decor. As I educated myself in the vernacular, my eye kept seeing all those Cav paintings. And the Queen had 14 Corgis!
But I didn't buy the dogs to match the decor.
My first Cav was purchased as a gift for a friend who was very ill. It was kind of a last wish request. She cost $1500. and it took me a year to pay her off on my Visa card. My friend had her for the five years of her life, and sadly he did pass away. I inherited her for the next eleven years. Her name was Winnie and she passed away at age 16.
The Corgi choice was a lark. My ex-husband lost his childhood dog to old age, and he was very depressed. I checked out an AKC book of breeds from the library, and tried to get him interested in looking at dog pictures. He was mourning, and couldn't do it.
I read the book from cover to cover, and I kept going back to the page about the Welsh Corgi (there is another breed called the Cardigan Corgi). I liked the Corgi because it a had a very long life span. It was a medium size dog, about 35 pounds fully grown, and I thought that was a good size for man, and for our NYC apartment. I also thought the Corgi looked like a mutt with those short legs, and a body shaped like an Electrolux vacuum cleaner.
We eventually got one. I saw an ad in The New York Times, rented a car to go to a farm in Pennsylvania where the puppy was. The ex-hubs was pensive on the three hour ride there. I assured him if he didn't like the dog we'd chalk it up to a drive in the country. The puppy was the last in the litter. Home raised. He was in a little pen in the kitchen. We walked in and sat on the floor, and they let the puppy out, who jumped in my ex's arms, licked is face, and was ours from then on.
So there I was a gal with an English style decor and two picture perfect English dogs.
When Winnie died the present hubs asked for no more pets (our ancient cat died too). We travel alot.
But the house was too empty. And then Katrina came and went leaving vast pools of emptiness. I asked the hubs for another dog, and we got our second Cav, our baby boy Cholo.
Now we do not have $1500. for a dog. I spent many hours online after Katrina, on eBay, another kind of therapy. I also looked at those Puppy Find sites just to see the cute puppy pictures. I was looking at females, because that's what we had. I also looked for dogs within driving distance, because I just couldn't buy a d ---, A DOG in a box. The prices were out of reach. I tried to find a rescue dog, an old dog if need be. But no luck
But one day I flipped to the page with male dogs, and there he was. $300.!
Why? He's a registered breed. He's 4 months old. He's a mismark. Say what?!
I contacted the breeder, again a home raised situation, and I was told that the puppy only had the proper markings over one eye, a half-a-mask so to speak, and for this reason he was considered flawed. The breeder told me that most often these puppies are destroyed, killed at birth to preserve purity of the breed. But since he's not a show dog breeder (or a heartless fuck), he sells the mismarks at a discount for a family pet.
Hot damn! I sold a Chanel jacket on eBay, and we drove to Mississippi and got our dog!
Please send me photos of your dog (or cat) at home ensconced in your decor. It would be fun to post them from time to time.
Send photos to: visualvamp1@yahoo.com