Piper in Pipeline-Land

We are pleased to announce that FBRN has welcomed its very first Alaskan foster! Young Piper is growing acclimated to the balmy southern breezes of Anchorage as she makes the acquaintance of her foster friends and family. Who'da thunk a Frenchie could thrive in the frigid Alaskan winters? Here's a little known fact: in 1954, the Alaskan Iditarod race was nearly won by a team of 423 Frenchies pulling for all they were worth, wearing wee little booties and caribou coats, mushed by an absinthe-raddled, former French Foreign Legionnaire, still insane with the memory of his lost love, a lady barkeep in Beaune who was crushed when a wall of burgundy bottles collapsed during a particularly violent political argument involving the reasons for Charlemagne's failure to conquer the British Isles.

Well,OK: "Almost won" is an exaggeration. They came in second-to-last, ahead of a team of 1,006 Italian greyhounds who were later disqualified. Not drugs. Dope. Dopiness, really.* Though they did win special prizes for how adorable they looked in their wee fur Dr. Zhivago hats--which was all the more surprising, given Dr. Zhivago had not yet been filmed.

But we were discussing something, what was it? Oh, yes. Piper!
Piper is a pretty young thing, mainly healthy, with what might be a touch of thyroid, and a history of some seizures. Here you see that Piper wears her lip in our favorite way: tucked under, the better to show off her lovely teefs.
Piper will be undergoing spay surgery and will then be available for adoption. She is a big baseball fan, it turns out, and spends quite a lot of every weekend sitting on the couch with a diet Dr. Pepper in one hand and a bowl of Cheetos or Jalapeno Doritos in the other. Last Sunday she went through a whole can of Pringles all by herself. Her foster dad hangs out with her because he can work the mute button on the remote for commercials. She also watched a lot of the Tour de France, of course. Here you can see her challenging one of the resident Frenchies, Lindy, to a bike race to celebrate Bastille day. Lindy declined, but offered to ride in the basket and sing "La Marseillaise" at the top of her lungs. "Zut alors!" said Piper, and she went off in search of some aristocrats to badmouth.

Unfortunately, Piper's search for decadent royals was disappointing. Though she located a few individuals who made some doubtful claims to descendancy from the Romanovs and wanted money for a clandestine boat trip across the water to the motherland (Piper declined), and she saw one guy a little the worse for drink who kept shouting, "I'm the Dauphin! The Dauphin of France!" we can see the expression of disgust on Piper's face as she returns having found no aristocrats in Alaska to abominate.
Piper should know better! Alaska is a land of freedom, of social democracy, of a free-wheeling live and let live approach to one's confreres, and simply chock-full of very interesting and unique individuals, if we recall our Northern Exposure correctly. In Alaska, one need not abominate aristocrats, for, as the tv tells us, they are very likely wearing the same red union suit and three years growth of facial hair that you yourself are sporting. Dear Piper, if you wish to pursue aristocrats and other decadent types, you must look beyond the borders of Alaska.

However, we don't think you should look too hard, lest you locate and dispense with your own loving
Frog Princess

*The Frog Princess kids. She kids! She kids because she loves. We adore the Iggies.