Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Today’s photograph shows the kitten as the tiny cherry on the top of this amazing pyramid pile of canines. Google translates Chiens Savants from the French as Dog Scholars. The title cracks me up – talented they are, scholars might be pushing it a tad bit. This card was produced in France and originally mailed there. Written in neat hand at the top near the title is bons baisers, good kisses? I have provided the back of the card below and those of you who are more capable in the reading of French might be able to tell me what the handwritten notations say in addition to the address and the sender. I am unfamiliar with reading French postmarks, but I believe this was sent in 1908 to a Mademoiselle Suzanne Mériot. However I purchased this from someone in Croatia, so it had wandered a bit in its time before coming to our U.S. shores.

Kim darkened this photo after scanning and it is much improved with increased contrast as you see it here. We spent some time this morning dunning the person who did the original printing – tired hypo, sloppy printing. As this was some sort of assembly line production perhaps it was more complicated than that. I am not sure I entirely understand how that early production work was executed for such things.

Meanwhile, in this great image the long suffering Pitbull or Pitbull mix has been taught to carry this pile of poodle, topped off by (I think) a chihuahua and that tiny kitten! (Kim initially put in an oar saying he thought that was a baby bear rather than a chihuahua – I can see where he was going with that, another circus animal, but doesn’t look fluffy enough for me.) I like the beagle who is just parked under the larger dog – good fellow! Everyone is wearing a more or less stalwart expression with the exception of the poodle who, frankly, looks anxious. I don’t blame him, in some ways I think he has the most delicate of the balancing act presented. Fair to say the kitten looks mildly irritated in a general annoyed cat way. I believe I have confessed in Pictorama posts more than once (see Dashington’s and Mad Jenny posts) that as a small child I would play circus animal games with my cat, Snoopy, and dog, Duchess (a German Shepard) and could convince them to stay still for about a single second in such a pose! I wonder what it is about human nature that makes us want to pile animals on one another? I think I have outgrown it, but then again, I do not have a nice big dog to try Cookie and Blackie with.