Dogs Playing Poker

I got a chuckle from the recent media reports about a survey from the American Kennel Council  about dogs in American culture (read our blog post here). One of the things that made me laugh was that the most popular dogs in art award went to "Dogs Playing Poker" (an old favourite of mine - who would not want this in the pool room")! 

When I googled it to find a picture to post on the blog, I laughed out loud at what I found!

Not only did I find that these great dog paintings have their own wikipedia entry but there is even an entire website devoted to them (called, maybe not surprisingly, "DogsPlayingPoker.org"). Not just that, there is even a video game called Dogs Playing Poker!!!.


The paintings themselves were done by American artist Cassius Coolidge (C.C. Coolidge) and were commissioned in 1903 by a Tobacco company to advertise cigars. 
 The titles in the "Dogs Playing Poker" series proper are:

A Bold Bluff A Friend in Need His Station and Four Aces Pinched with Four Aces Poker Sympathy

Post Mortem Sitting up with a Sick Friend Stranger in Camp Waterloo

The original series was joined in 1910 by a similar painting by Coolidge called  Looks Like Four of a Kind.
On February 15, 2005, the originals of "A Bold Bluff" and "Waterloo" were auctioned as a pair to an undisclosed buyer for US$590,000!


I am so glad I took the few minutes to do the google search to learn more about the Dog Playing Poker series. I learned so much (honest Dr Mark, it is work!). What did we do before the internet was invented?
 Anyway, have to go now, gotta google "Dogs Playing Pool"!