Welcome to the Poodle Room!

[Michael]

I figured we needed a nice little welcome note so this place isn't so empty at the moment. I want to welcome everyone to the new site/forum here. Zefi and I had first started talking about this nearly a year ago, and it's nice to see it come to fruition at this point. The site is still being developed, so bear with the thin amount of content and members at the time. We'll build that up in no time! Anyway, "the poodle room" is a name that goes way back to me. When I worked for a lady that bred/showed toys and minis, we had one room where the poodles were kept. Always referred to, simply, as "the poodle room". We also boarded and groomed, so it was a way to differentiate areas. When I tossed the name at Zefi, she loved it, so we went with it, and then began a long process of finding every detour on the road to here that we could! But we finally have gotten to this wonderful point of sharing our dream and ideas with others.

For those who do not know (I will post more in my own intro very soon), I have also run eskie.net for a number of years now. I setup a similar forum there almost 4 years ago, and it's become quite a lively place over time. That site focuses more on American Eskimo Dogs (affectionately known as eskies)...which is my *other* favorite breed, as you can probably tell by my sig. I've long wanted a like site/forum for poodles, and with Zefi's help, we've brought our dreams together with this. A place where people can join to post comments, questions, or just share stories and experiences about the poodles in our lives. To learn and to help others learn as well. We do hope this becomes a very valuable resource to people in time. We've put a lot into setting things up and preparing the way for the future. We look forward to what that will be.

So...here we are. This is the place to talk poodles and related matters. So, post away...and we'll keep the discussion rolling.

PS....we have a couple of our moderators from the Eskie Board helping us out for the beginning stages here. But we'll talk poodles and poodle stuff here, so let's get to it, eh.....

[auntie c]

thanks for the warm welcome michael, congrats to you both, i am sure im not alone, in hoping all goes well with this site, cant wait to get to nitty gritty of it as time goes by. carlene

[auntie c]

thank you so much for the help with the pic, these are my two beautiful boys, maxwell is the background baby and harry is now our only child. I was lucky enough to be given him by a labradoodle breeder that no longer needed his services, he was only 9 months old..... He had a little baggage, not too much, when we got him, but now he is a very social poodle. If he was to write a book, the title would read. FROM KANGAROOS TO CAFES.
On saturday mornings there is a crowd of poodles that meet at the beach, then head to a local cafe for breakfast.... what a sight for passers-by... 6-8 humans owned and enjoying breakfast with atleast 10 poodles. The cafe owner provides us with POODLE PLATE, chipolata's, rissoles and sliced meats from the deli, and even a chicken schnitzel on occasion, which they all share without argument, just happy to be in each others company.
We often think if we are the only poodle owners in the world that do this, it seems so natural to us, as our poodles are so social.... We have birthday parties for each birthday that passers. At christmas we have santa visit us all at the beach. And we have all been present for untimely passings of our beloved poodles, we are all here for one another and its just so lovely. All of us from the beach are all diverse in our lives but our one common thread is our POODLE.

[Michael]

That sounds neat, Carlene! We don't have anything like that where I'm at....but maybe others do. I'd love to have something like that with poodles and/or eskies....it's nice to socialize the dogs and ourselves! BTW, Christmas and beaches sounds like oil and water to me....way up here in the Yukon-like parts of the USA, well, Xmas can be a little white and cold! But we survive no matter where we live, eh!?! And yes, in so many ways in life, we can find the common thread of our dogs with others..it's a nice thread too....and I hope we share lots of that here as well.

PS...no problem with the sig pic. For others...if you need help with putting up a sig pic, let me know, and I'll help.

[zefi]

Carlene, I am so envious! In Melbourne I had some friends with other poodles (mostly toys and minis) who I'd get together with so I was always surrounded by poodles, but nothing as exciting and fun as that!

[auntie c]

i will take a pic next saturday of the beach, then at the cafe.... can you believe our local council has tried many times over the years to stop us... first they tried to actually close the dog beach, but luckily they have no jurisdiction over it. it doesnt belong to council, it belongs to the waterways authority and many years ago they gave the local race horse community the approval, so its actually designated as a beach for race horses, but they are very rarely there ( i have only seen them a dozen times in the past 10 years). Then the council passed a local government act to ban dogs dining within "10 metres of a commercial kitchen". so we always made sure we were well away there, and the recent attempt has been to actually publish and distribute literature stating that a dog cannot dine parrallel to a commercial kitchen, there are fines for both dog owners and cafe owners $300 per dog per owner and $3000 for the poor business owner! So we had to put our heads together. (lucky one of us is a lawyer) so now we just make sure we are adjacent. we just move the table and chairs to the front of the shop next door, which conveniently is a dress shop and they dont open til 10am and we are gone by 9.30.  We have never seen a council ranger enforce this as yet, but we are awaiting with much excitement, with finally a chance to "take them on" its just so ridiculous.....
carlene
harry who & maxwell smart (at the bridge)

[zefi]

Thats all bloody ridiculous Carlene! How stupid some people are! What harm are you and the other dogs doing? If the cafe owners dont mind, why would others? Sheesh.

I presume you are doing everything right, picking up after your dogs, who are all legally registered with the council, keep them under control, make sure they are all well behaved etc. What on earth are these idiots complaining about?

Dont tell me. Some people are just stupid obviously. 

[martlet]

Hey I finally joined.  It will take me a bit of time to get used to this. Anyway, congrats Zefi and Michael for the start of hopefully something big. Looking forward to it.

Debbie, Razzle and Indy

[auntie c]

hi debbie, im so glad you joined and am every so happy for you and razzle for finding Indy. cant wait to see a pic....

carlene & harry who

[Karen]

We are lucky in our small town in that one of the local cafes is exceptionally dog friendly (it's even called the "Crazy Dog" ) & has a water bowl & tables outside with a bowl of water permanently filled in the warmer months. They have some dog items scattered around & photos of regular dogs on a notice board in the window.. There are actually a few such places scattered around in Gippsland where the proprietors offer dog water & other dog friendly attitutes.

[zefi]

Thats nice.  A friend of mine says her dream is to open a dog friendly cafe in the local town when she retires from her job. That'd be nice.

[auntie c]

oh karen, where are you living, we all need to be moving there.

we have a cafe that we go to, but the council is always trying to fine the poor cafe owner..

its illegal to be within 50 metres of a commercial kitchen, but the loophole for us is that we can actually be adjacent and not cop the fine. the fine itself is $200 for each dog owner and $3000 for the cafe owner..
so luckily for us, the shop next door to the cafe is a restaurant that is closed on a saturday morning, so we just move the table and chairs to the front of this restaurant... its all just a bit of a joke, and we have been doing this now for 8 years..

carlene and co

[zefi]

Isnt it funny the things we do to get around the law? LOL

Reading your email just then I had a flashback to many years ago on Paros... I would work on Paros for the summer, either in a bar or at a disco and the law was that everything closed at 2am on all days, 3am on saturday or public holidays. That meant that everyone would go home or whatever. But people like us who'd been working all night didnt feel like just going home, we needed to sit and talk and unwind a bit. So we would take a bottle of some drink and go sit at the shut cafe's on the waterfront and just talk and while away the time in the darkness. It was a great time.

An enterprising take-away owner would shut his shop earlier but re-open later on to feed us. LOL He would sent his son out to take orders and then bring them out to us. It was like 'What? I'm just out for a stroll and these people are all eating stuff they bought earlier'. LOL