Poodle

With no classes and no homework, summer's the perfect time to try something new. Wish you knew the names of butterflies in your neighborhood? Longing to brush up on your painting skills? Then do what we did -- grab a book and get busy.There's a lot to love about the "Fun With Nature Take-Along Guide" ($15, NorthWord Press). It's jammed with fascinating info and fabulous drawings.The book also provides activities to try -- and that's where we ran into trouble. We had to try, "Watch Chipmunks Walk a Tightrope" and asked reader Robin B., 11, to do the experiment for us.THE EXPERIMENTWhat you need:* 6 peanuts in shells* 6 pieces of string, each 8 inches long* A clothesline or a rope tied between two trees about 5 feet off the groundWhat to do:1.

Call her the dog whisperer. Betty Kipphut is kneeling beside a black standard poodle named Jake, clutching a handful of shiny, 1-inch-long needles. "Goooood dog," she murmurs as she inserts the needles into his skin, one by one, until he resembles a canine porcupine. Jake's response to this indignity? He licks her.Jake, like Kipphut's other clients (a third are animals; the rest are humans), has come to her Clarksville office for relief. The 8-year-old poodle is suffering from lymphoma as well as side effects of chemotherapy.

When the region's finest canines strut into the 5th Regiment Armory Sunday to put on the dog at the Maryland Kennel Club's annual show, they will be greeted by Eve Ballich.As club president, she won't be showing her champion wire fox terriers in this event; instead, she and other club members will assist with the general operation of the 86th All-Breed Dog Show and Obedience Trial.Other days, though, Ballich is right in the middle of the ring, positioning her dog for the judge's keen eyes.

My 6 3/4 -inch cigar humidor is made out of painted glass and is marked "Wave Crest." It's off-white and decorated with flowers and leaves. A sponge can be placed in the lid to humidify the cigars inside. How old is it, and who made it?Cigar humidors are collectible no matter who made them. You have a Victorian art-glass treasure manufactured by the C. F. Monroe Glass Co. of Meriden, Conn. It is worth about $1,000.Monroe made Wave Crest ware from 1892 until some time before it closed in 1916.

NEW YORK -- The parks are in full fall color, but inside designer showrooms, theaters and tents in Manhattan's garment district, it's blooming fashion.American and international designers -- 54 of them -- are showing press and retailers their ideas on next year's spring dressing. Irrepressible Isaac Mizrahi jumped the gun on his own designer show, inviting editors to brunch and dish and preview his secondary and less expensive Is**c, although obviously starry line.Like other fashion stars, he recognizes there is a limited market ,, for high-end designer prices so he's whipping up snappy turnouts for real women.

I always feel sorry for the poodles, especially the big ones, the standards. Such wonderful animals, strong and clever, with as good a sense of humor as any dog you'll ever meet.Yet here they are, at the prestigious Westminster Kennel Club dog show in New York, with their bare fannies catching the drafts on the floor of Madison Square Garden. The butt, if you'll excuse me, of jokes erupting in living rooms and newspaper columns from coast to coast.Moments before the Best In Show finale, I stood not more than two yards away from the show's top poodle, Ch. La Marka Nina Oscura, and looked closely not at that shaved rump, or at the waves of black furcascading over her shoulders, or even at the puffs of fur on her legs and tail, but at her eyes, clear and intelligent, looking up at her handler with love.

One of the classiest television series ever has one of the classiest reunions in a long time at 9 tomorrow night on WBAL (Channel 11)."The Rockford Files: I Still Love L.A." is probably the best TV you'll see this November, although that might be damning it with faint praise.The 1970s private eye, Jim Rockford (James Garner), is still living in a house trailer on the beach, still beset by a friendship with Angel Martin (Stuart Margolin) and still driving Lieutenant Becker (Joe Santos) crazy.

Q: We have a ceramic "Little Orphan Annie" mug from the 1930s. It is three inches tall and was an Ovaltine premium. Is it worth anything?A: Little Orphan Annie was a comic character created by Harold Gray in 1924. When she debuted on radio, Ovaltine was the sponsor. The mug was just one of the many premiums offered by Ovaltine. "Hakes Guide to Comic Character Collectibles" by Ted Hake lists a mug, circa 1932, similar to yours at $50.Q: I have a Staffordshire figurine of a poodle that was given to my parents as a wedding gift in 1912.

Rebecca Tansil celebrated her 92nd birthday yesterday, and, far from retiring, she continues to show her miniature poodles and take them to championships in dog shows around the country.In her Andechez Kennels in Parkton, this active person has bred some of the most magnificent white miniature poodles in this country or abroad since 1954. She is an outspoken advocate for dogs and is quick to say that dogs are happier when obedience-trained and that they love being in dog shows.Her constant challenge is to breed seldom but to breed the best in order to obtain perfect poodles, which ''has always been of major importance to me and is true of any responsible breeder,'' she notes.

A WHITE STANDARD poodle, Ch. Whisperwind on a Carousel, better known as Peter, stood alone in the center of a green-matted ring in Madison Square Garden in New York last night as the supreme winner of the 115th Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.From an entry of 2,500 dogs, the big white dog owned by Joan and Frederick Hartsock of Potomac, Md., emerged to restore the best-in-show award to a breed that hadn't triumphed here since 1973. The rest of this year's entrants had fallen somewhere along the line during two days and two nights of the sharpest canine competition the country affords.

President-elect Barack Obama has promised change. He has also promised his daughters a puppy. With the right dog, he can make good on both. From Thomas Jefferson's briards to George W. Bush's Scottish terriers, the White House doghouse has been stuffed with austere purebreds. The 44th president appears destined for a different kind of dog. Perhaps he'll choose one from a shelter, where there are "mutts like me," he said yesterday at his first news conference, addressing both the weighty family dog issue and the economic crisis.

Police find operation to grow marijuana Two people were arrested after police found a marijuana-growing operation in an Annapolis apartment. After the management of Forest Hills Apartments called police about a foul odor coming from the first block of Melrob Court, officers went door to door on Friday and became suspicious when no one answered the door of an obviously occupied apartment, police said. Police broke in and found a large amount of marijuana - some of it freshly cultivated - and marijuana paraphernalia in the open.

Nancy Pine first began to worry when she realized that her poodle had been at the groomer for five hours - more than twice as long as Rajah's typical visits to be shampooed and clipped and coiffed. That concern multiplied when, two hours after Pine called to check on her dog, the groomer's fiance knocked on her door and deposited Rajah on the floor of her Baldwin home. "He couldn't even hold his head up. He was barely conscious," Pine recalled yesterday. The poodle died about 10 hours later at the Falls Road Animal Hospital and an animal autopsy - called a necropsy - revealed that he had suffered acute liver injuries, broken ribs, and internal bleeding and might have been strangled, according to court records.

Wearing a miniature yarmulke and prayer shawl, Avi - a grayish-black standard poodle - was more prepared for Halloween than most people as he strutted his stuff to the sounds of the Hora on Sunday. While his "Bark Mitzvah" getup may have been one of the more original at this year's Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter's BARCStoberfest, he was hardly out of place amid the throngs of costumed canines at the Patterson Park fundraiser. "He's bar mitzvah age," owner Joanne Dolgow said, explaining the elaborate costume.

"What am I up to now? Not very much," says Bishop L. Robinson, 80, the city's first African-American police commissioner. "I spent 50 years in government and started my career with the Baltimore Park Police. I then moved on to the city Police Department and climbed every rank -- I didn't miss a step -- until Mayor William Donald Schaefer appointed me commissioner in 1984." When Schaefer was elected governor, Robinson followed him to Annapolis, where he served two terms as public safety director, and then one term during the administration of Gov. Parris N. Glendening.

Anne Rogers Clark, 77 Dog handler Anne Rogers Clark, 77, the first woman professional handler to win best in show at the Westminster Kennel Club contest, died Wednesday in Wilmington, Del., according to the dog show organization. She had been battling cancer. Mrs. Clark had attended every Westminster show since 1941 and three times handled the best-in-show winner at America's top event. She judged 22 times at Westminster and was scheduled to review the terrier group at Madison Square Garden in February.

Good morning --Bull terrier -- Best in show? You may be funny-looking, but at least you don't have poodle hair.

LAST WEEK'S ISSUE: -- The Anne Arundel County state's attorney's office decided this month not to bring charges against a jogger who kicked a small poodle that nipped at him. State's Attorney Frank R. Weathersbee expressed frustration that the misdemeanor provision of the state's misdemeanor animal-cruelty law is aimed at abusive caretakers, not passers-by. State lawmakers are considering trying to expand the law to cover all people who mistreat animals. Should the state's animal cruelty law be broadened so that misdemeanors cover more than just animal owners and caretakers?

Animal rights activists and law enforcement officials urged a Maryland House panel yesterday to pass legislation that would close a loophole in the law that allowed an Edgewater jogger who forcefully kicked a nipping poodle to go uncharged. The bill, drafted by Del. Murray D. Levy, a Charles County Democrat, would alter a state law so that anyone who inflicts "unnecessary pain or suffering" on an animal could be charged with misdemeanor animal cruelty. Under current law, a misdemeanor charge can be brought only against an animal's owner or caretaker.

Cathi Webster sometimes sees it when she walks the streets of Canton, the raw fear in their eyes. Mothers clutch their children a little tighter. Grandmothers sidle off the sidewalk, and grown men scuttle across the street. At first, she didn't get it. "I mean, it's not like it's a bomb on the end of the leash," she said. Actually, it's a Chihuahua mix with bright friendly eyes, her diminutive pet, Scout. But "the size doesn't matter," said Webster, president of the Friends of Canton Dog Park.