Dogs and A Cat

I was finding pets a bit thin on the ground for this week's Sunday Stamps theme and then a envelope plopped through my letterbox with three lovely stamps, one of which was this, issued for the Europa theme of Children's Books in 2010.  It shows the wired haired fox terrier Dášeňka from Karel Čapek's story of the adventures of a puppy as it grows called, well yes,  "The Life of a Puppy".  That made me think of other children's stories and it brought to my mind last year's Alderney issue commemorating the Life of Beatrix Potter,

and sure enough two of the six stamp set show Beatrix sitting by a Lakeland river thinking of stories to tell while her dog retrieves sticks.  It looks like a spaniel so it will no doubt be bounding into the water at some stage.  As the sun sets she settles down to draw her story characters while the cat snoozes in the basket.  I suspect her day was busier than portrayed because at this time she was running a working farm in the Lake District.   A neighboring Channel Island featured dogs on stamps last year but in this case it was a whole set

commemorating the Kennel Club of Jersey dogs.  This one portrayed has the usual type of extravagant name of show dogs,  'Jsy CH Tiroen Taylormade'.  As can be seen this particular stamp was the entry to the SEPAC (Small European Postal Administration Cooperation) 2013 theme of fauna which produced diverse interpretations from tigers to seagulls.

 

Lastly one of my favourite dogs, a Labrador Retriever.  For the Lunar New Year of the Dog in 2006 New Zealand post issued six dog breeds. The Labrador was portrayed as a Guide Dog and this stamp value was also in Braille.  There are two versions, a gummed one  and the one shown here which originated from a self adhesive stamp booklet (the booklet issue has no top white edge).

An entry to Viridian Postcard's Sunday Stamps theme of - Pets