Good morning everyone,

Thank you to the friend and subscriber who sent me the link that kicks off today's Fem Fri. I think you're going to like this one too because it's all about women and their relationships to, and friendships with, dogs throughout the years.

We start with the indigenous women of the Pacific Northwest, who made blankets and clothes from dog fur in what seemed to be a happy and mutually supportive relationship:

Back in their village longhouses, the women transformed that fur into yarn, spinning it and mixing it with the wool of mountain goats and adding plant fibers and goose down to make the thread strong and warm. They beat the yarn with white diatomaceous earth to deter insects and mildew. They dyed some of the yarn red with alder bark, tinted it a light yellow with lichen, and produced blue and black threads using minerals or huckleberries. The rest—an ivory-hued yarn—they set aside. Then the women set up their looms and began to weave, turning out twill-patterned blankets of various sizes, some with elaborate and colorful geometric designs, others with simple stripes. The dogs did more than provide fur. They were also part of village life: sometimes, a favorite wooly dog would keep a weaver company.

https://www.hakaimagazine.com/features/the-dogs-that-grew-wool-and-the-people-who-love-them/

This history of Pekingese dogs is interesting on its own – they were bred to look like tiny stylised lions! They were bred to think they were tiny stylised lions! but also because a woman, the Empress Dowager Cixi, was maybe responsible for how immensely fashionable Pekes were in the West in the early 20th century:

When the Manchu or Qing Dynasty overthrew the Ming in 1644, once more the Lion Dogs survived. Documentation on them is scarce for much of the era, until the time of the Empress Dowager Cixi (or Tzu Hsi). She was dotingly fond of Pekingese dogs, and during her rapprochement with westerners after the Boxer Rebellion, she gave Pekes as gifts to some European and American visitors. The empress herself had one particular favorite named Shadza, which means "Fool."

https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-the-pekingese-dog-195234

Finally, here's Mathilde De Cagny, who trained a dog you might know – Moose, the wee Jack Russell from Frasier. A lot of her job, it seems, it getting dogs to like people more by putting pate behind their ears:

But I like the spontaneity of what’s going to happen and dealing with it in the moment. I’m self-taught — I learned by intuition and by being around dogs. I like to work with their personalities […] It’s kind of like cooking — you see what’s in the fridge and you make something out of it. I never quite know exactly how I’m going to get something done; I take my cues first from my animals and then from the director.

https://thebark.com/content/beginners-animal-trainer-extraordinaire

Love,

Alex