Dogs and museums are things that you don’t expect to see in the same sentence very often. However, if you live in the Boston area, then you might have seen them together in the cute story covered by most local media about Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts “hiring” a 12 week old Weimaraner puppy named Riley to protect their collections from unwanted visitors. Here’s a clip from the local CBS News channel and their news story about the little guy.
CBS Boston (YouTube Channel)
CBS Boston (Official Website)
Museum Of Fine Arts Welcomes New Pest Detection Dog (CBS Boston)
So, dogs and museums aren’t as incongruous as they may seem at first.
In fact, there’s also a Museum of the Dog in St. Louis, MO backed by the American Kennel Club. Here’s a local news clip about that museum.
Nine PBS (YouTube Channel)
Nine PBS (Official Website)
Last year the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis also hosted an exhibit entitled Dogs: Faithful and True. Here’s a clip from the local news channel about it.
WRTV Indianapolis (YouTube Channel)
WRTV Indianapolis (Official Website)
Here’s a longer, more in depth piece made in connection with the exhibit that features a chat with a musher from the Iditarod.
Pet Pals TV (YouTube Channel)
Pet Pals TV (Official Website)
The Smithsonian even has a whole page dedicated to dogs entitled Dog: Museum’s Best Friend. So dogs and museums aren’t incongruous, and this is all even fairly down to Earth stuff as far as the conservative world of traditional museums go.
A bit further off the beaten path was a contemporary art show that premiered in London in 2016 that featured interactive sculptures by Dominic Wilcox as well as wall based paintings, drawings and collages that dogs would appreciate. The paintings were even created in colours dogs can see and scented in the subject matter of the art work.
The literary minded geeks might also be itching to thrust their hands into the air. Yes indeed, there is a quirky novel by Jonathan Carroll entitled Outside the Dog Museum.
Of course, the less intellectually inclined readers amongst you are probably disappointed because this post hasn’t been about what you thought it was going to be about. You thought it was going to be about C.M. Coolidge’s series Dogs Playing Poker colloquially known as Dogs at Cards, didn’t you?
Don’t fret — here are a few morsels for you 🙂
HighRollerRadioTV (YouTube Channel)
15 Things You Should Know About Dogs Playing Poker (Kristy Puchko, Mental Floss)
Find out more about dogs, museums and, of course, just a tad o’ humor 😉