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Among the highlights of a recent influx of postcards into my inventory is a healthy assortment of dogs. Now, as we have mentioned hereintofore, the number one activity of dogs on postcards is, well, Number One. Note this card, for example, in which the puppy’s name, Pee Wee, is pretty much a safety rail to make sure you don’t miss the joke on your way to reading “I am fine. How are you?” on the flipside.
As mentioned before, this is a little unfair. Dogs are capable of doing so many other things. (My personal favorite in this picture is the underling coming sheepishly, or sheepdogishly, through the door, possibly with a late or negative report.) But this collection does offer us dogs in roles other than hero of bathroom jokes.
We can see in this example that they are capable of complex financial negotiations: not exactly WOLVES of wall Street but nonetheless puppies obviously in the know about what to do in business districts.
In fact, this seems to be a fairly common concept. The look in THIS dog’s eye, for example, indicates his confidence that he knows what he’s doing.
But the mid-century canine was also capable of cultural pursuits. Not only is there one glamourhound starring in the movie here, but one of the moviegoers has been moved to an appreciation of architectural layout.
And here we see a group of neighborhood activists interested in architectural preservation.
These might be dogs from the same group, or from another group concerned with ecological pursuits. Their appreciation of neighborhood beautification is something it would be nice to see in other bland, comfortless areas.
Of course, from the earliest days, the bloodhound was seen as a competent investigator, on or off the police force, but this does not get as much representation on postcards as it deserves. Here is a longlost still photograph from the first episode of an early television detective show, airing at a time when you’d think dogeared old bathroom stereotypes were everywhere. Instead, we see two detectives meeting at the same crime scene, initially suspecting each other of being responsible for the evidence. (For those who do not remember the show, they eventually team up with the jovial criminal responsible, the family’s pet monkey, to enjoy a long run on TV as the team of Monkey Puppy Baby.)
In view of all this evidence, it’s hard to imagine why so many other postcard artists believed all dogs do all day is empty their bladders. Perhaps some sinister postcard rivals were responsible.
Blogsy Babbles 