The DOOM Spaniels

Outrunning the mosquitoes today.

She was the most beautiful creature that ever existed

My three favourite girls, my three favourite breeds 🥰💕

Told myself I wasn't going to draw another dog, but I'm too obsessed with her ears not to do it

@x22817

My new wallpaper 😍 thank you oh so very much!

whoops i forgot to post this here because of who I am as a person. A little digital painting of my charlie boy that I then turned into a tongue in cheek kennel shirt.

based on x

Holy fuck, I never saw this until it came across my dash from another mutual. Thank you OP, this is gorgeous. I was like… THAT LOOKS LIKE LAYLAS EARSIES?!?!

And it is!

Doggust week 2!

We're halfway through the month! I'm having a blast drawing so many dogs and there is plenty more on the way!

I see from the tags that bottom right is "golden retriever" but that's Gwyn

🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻

It’s hard to write a poem about her. It’s hard to write about her at all; she is so deeply present in my world, she shapes it around me, how do you write about air and gravity? She is the golden, dark striped creature whose long body lies beside my own each night, on a bed just below mine. Her soft cries are what wake me; her quiet contentment is what soothes me to sleep. She asks with dark, soft eyes for things like food and love and attention and I am bound to deliver. She asks to go out and explore the scent-songs of her small universe and I am bound to accompany her. She tells me, it’s time to go into the world now and I say, okay, I’m coming.

She wants to take it all in, wants to trace every scent with her long, once-dark snout. Every blade of grass, every bit of gravel and every tree trunk tells its own story, sings its own song, and she is listening. She takes her time. Walks slow and purposeful through the world, has her own agenda and her own plans, sometimes coinciding with mine. She is unbothered by the dogs who shout at her as they pass us in the street; she does not acknowledge them, they are trivial background noise and she is learning songs.

Once home she rests in contentment on the soft landing of the couch (an effort to climb onto, but she still makes it), adorned with fleece blankets just for her. Sometimes I cover her in a blanket, too, and she smiles as she sleeps, waiting for the certainty of mealtime.

This is her life, these days: a gentle walk, a gentle sleep, a good meal. Sometimes a romp in the yard. Her hind legs don’t work the way they used to, her breath comes up with more effort and sometimes a wheeze, but she still runs. It’s what I tell people when they ask after her. She’s a little slower than she used to be, but she still runs. Like that means everything. For a greyhound, maybe it does.

She’s happy, I tell them. And that does mean everything. She’s happy learning her songs, tracing the same paths she has traced for ten years around the neighborhood. There are certain trees, certain rocks, certain patches of grass at which we always stop. She loves her routine. She makes it mine too.

It’s hard to write about air, about gravity. What you need to live, what keeps your feet on this earth.

A few months ago now, there was a lovely, wonderfully charming Spaniel Conference happening between @doomspaniels and @thelittlespanielthatcould, and during a conversation in the notes it came about that the wonderfully freckled Tristan & Guinevere, and the happiest little gentleman Kovu are, in fact, all smaller than the cocker spaniels I have been privileged to know in my life. Much smaller. So of course they asked about the king-sized candy bar cockers I have loved in my time, and I was too preoccupied at the time to do more than upload a video. Now, I deliver the illustrated saga.

Behold, the first of her name, Her Highness Princess Margaret Millicent Moo, known most often to her loved ones as Monster, Millie, Little Tank, Little Horror (affectionate), Little Destroyer, and on special occasions, Miss Millie Moo.

Monster joined our family at nine weeks old and a perfectly normal eight pounds, and at the time we had no reason to believe she wouldn’t be a reasonably-sized cocker spaniel. We knew she’d surely be much smaller than our first cocker spaniel, Barney the Giant Nebraskan Farm Cocker of ‘88, because he was a big puppy from the start, and he grew to be an absolute bird-harassing 42 lb bulldozer of a dog very quickly.

Admittedly, Monster was a pet store puppy (I KNOW, I know pet store puppies = bad, I wasn’t the person who bought her), so it’s not like we have any idea how big her parents were, but purebred cockers are supposed to be compact, and for the first few weeks our vet assured us she was on track to end up right around 25 pounds.

Then she started growing.

Please know, the members of my family are experienced dog owners. Up until my mom brought Monster home we’d only ever had one dog at a time, but we knew what we were doing, we were responsible, and we followed the directions and feeding schedule of the food the vet recommended. We did not over supplement, we were reasonable with treats, and yet somehow, by the time she was sixteen months old, Monster tipped the scale at 38 pounds and looked like this:

As one may see, she was not a chonker spaniel, she was proportional, she just happened to be BIG. And that was before she properly filled out into her adult build and hit the forty pound mark.

For perspective, here she is a couple years later next to our beloved Bella Moosh, who was a leggy 70 pound criminal mastermind collie mix. (Thank any and all gods for Bellbell, because we would not have made it through Monster’s puppyhood without her considerable assistance. We had reasons to call her Little Monster, oh man.)

Monster and Bellbell were absolute besties, but Monster, by virtue of being my mother’s favorite child not being composed of 88.75% awkward spindly legs, got to go more places In The Car. However, on the occasions that Bellbell did get to ride along on an adventure, Monster would be so excited at the proposition that they would be going Together that she would fully slam her whole body into Bellbell’s, and she was solid enough to set Bellbell staggering.

Here she is a few years later, when she was admittedly a little bit of a chonker spaniel at 43 lbs, because my parents moved into an apartment and she was… verbal. if you left her alone without at least a busy bone. (Sidenote: that’s not a compact car, it’s a giant Ford Taurus, she legit took up that much space.)

Luckily, Monster was much more aware of how big she was when it came to her true calling: babysitting. This dog adored small small children, it was incredible. She did not much care for snuggling or being petted; she wanted to be our loyal companion from six to eight feet away from while also eviscerating a stuffed toy with gleeful efficiency, but children were allowed to do whatever they wanted with her.

Monster was truly a unique individual. Sometimes I think she got as big as she did because otherwise there wouldn’t have been enough room for all her opinions. I have never met a dog with so much personality before or since.

I miss you, Little Horror 💙

Still hasn’t figured out a new outside photoshoot process with Hobi yet. Birds = more fun than me

HOBI HOBI HOOOOBIIIII

I am constantly surrounded by merrily laughing faces. Oh, such good silly crumpets.

Its a beautiful day and all the spaniels are sticking their noses in the air to sniff the smells and feel the sun on their faces

ahh yes spaniels!!! in the sun!!!!!

Little lookout creature gazes into the morning sun.

PENNY PENNY PENNY

It's tough to be a PocketWatchDog.