spaniel QUOTES

1 " I have been seeing dragons again.
Last night, hunched on a beaver dam,
one held a body like a badly held cocktail;
his tail, keeping the beat of a waltz,
sent a morse of ripples to my canoe.

They are not richly bright
but muted like dawns
or the vague sheen on a fly's wing.
Their old flesh drags in folds
as they drop into grey pools,
strain behind a tree.

Finally the others saw one today, trapped,
tangled in our badminton net.
The minute eyes shuddered deep in the creased face
while his throat, strangely fierce, stretched
to release an extinct burning inside:
pathetic loud whispers as four of us
and the excited spaniel surrounded him. "

― Michael Ondaatje , The Dainty Monsters

3 " There are no credentials. They do not even need a medical certificate. They need not be sound either in body or mind. They only require a certificate of birth -just to prove they are first of the litter. You would not choose a Spaniel on these principles. (On aristocracy) "