Dog's Balls and Elizabethan Collars

We're not quite sure what make of dog Chowderhead is. Obviously he's got a lot of Chow in him. But he also must have inherited the retriever gene. He seems to really enjoy running after thrown balls and bringing them back after slobbering on them. He produces lots of slobber.

Here's a filmstrip of Chowderhead and his ball in our backyard. The pictures enlarge if you click on them. Especially the last one with his purple tongue and dirty ball.


You'll notice Chowderhead is wearing a fetching plastic collar. This is to prevent him from trying to lick his balls and I don't mean his rubber ones.

Of course if he didn't have the collar he couldn't lick them anyway - because they've been removed by our vet. The operation is called an orchidectomy and the collar is called an Elizabethan Collar (not a "lampshade collar" as I might have guessed.) I suppose it reminds people of the collars worn by people when an Elizabeth was Queen of England. Like this woman, who would have called it a "Ruff" (which is what Chowderhead calls it.)


Poor Chowderhead. I felt his pain. Well. I imagined the pain he would have felt if he had the slightest notion of what had happened to him.

Strangely I couldn't find a single woman who would agree with me when I expressed my empathy for Chowderhead's loss. Men and women seem to view the issue differently.

This man started a successful business (and won a prize) by allowing male dogs to keep up appearances. I bet a huge percentage of his clients' owners are male and most of the Ignoble judges are not.

Anyway, the last picture is of Chowderhead's little head -- which we aren't likely to be seeing quite as often in the future. (This was taken in his indoor cage. You can click to ... oh forget it.)


Want to see more penis shots? Here's the website of the Phallological Museum in Iceland. (Just go straight to the Images section.) Here's a link to a tourist's photo of some specimens from that museum. (Leslie sent this to me.)

Read previous Mixed Meters mentions of the word penis here (several have a little bit to do with music.) Here's a post entitled Gender Marketing (it's about driveways.)

Here's a good page for pictures of Elizabethan ruffs.

And here are pictures of contemporary Elizabethan ruffs by artist Jesse Mathes

The Neuticles website.

The picture of Countess Frances Howard, born 1590 who managed to divorce her husband on the basis of his impotence, comes from Sex in Elizabethan England by Alan Haynes

Ball Tags: Chowderhead. . . rubber balls. . . testicles. . . neutering. . . Elizabethan collar. . . Elizabethan ruff. . . neuticles. . . penis