Vanessa Austin Locke: Jewish Dog of the Year

Something very exciting happened at the tail end of 2013. My puppy won Jewish Dog of the Year. Yes, I shih tzu not. Like most marvellous things, it happened one night when I’d had a few too many cinzanos… I follow a blog called The Jewish Mother [thejewishmother.co.uk], who is your one-stop shop for chicken soup, veracious scoldings and big-fat Jewish love. For those who don’t know, the Jewish mother is the lynchpin of Jewish society – vocal, indomitable, pushy, overbearing and endlessly – often embarrassingly – affectionate. Her bubalas (darlings) are her pride, joy and hopeless aggravation. The joke goes like this: A Jewish boy comes home from school and tells his mother he’s been given a part in the school play. “Wonderful! What part is it?” The boy says, “I play the part of the Jewish husband.” The mother scowls and says, “You go back and tell the teacher you want a speaking part.”

“The only thing worse than entering Jewish dog of the Year would be losing Jewish dog of the Year”

So, when The Jewish Mother told us to enter our dogs in her Jewish Dog of the Year competition I did as I was told. The next morning I awoke, head slightly woolly and memories of the previous night surfacing. Had I really become the woman who enters her dog in online competitions? My email confirmed the fact with a note from The Jewish Mother herself informing me that Lofty-Bob the Puppy Dog had been selected as a finalist for Jewish Dog of the Year. And this is when the pushy Jewish mother in me emerged in all her glory.

You see, the only thing worse than entering your puppy in Jewish Dog of the Year would be losing Jewish Dog of the Year. As the old joke goes… When does a Jewish foetus become viable? When it graduates from medical school. Dogs are no exception. There then followed an aggressive marketing campaign across my own social media networks. I hounded my friends to within an inch of being deleted, telling them that Jewish dogs were a minority group and needed their full suppawt. Well, most of my friends, family and many strangers came through for us, (those who didn’t have been added to my growing List of People I Will One Day Get), and after fighting tooth and claw my own little bubala actually won the darn thing and scooped £100 of Medivet vouchers AND a smashing pink rain mac from Long Paws [www.longpaws.co.uk]! How terrierific!

Now, there were those among my so-called ‘friends’ who had a total and utter sense of humour failure, thought I was barking mad and began asking me why I was indoctrinating my dog in ‘evil’ religious practises – without a hint of irony I should add. To them I say: God spelled backwards is Dog. Coincidence?

As for the rest of us who are not afraid to look into the face of Dog, and with a more robust (dare I say Jewish?) sense of humour, there is only one thing left to say… ‘Muzzle Tov!’

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