Celebrity Pets Tell All
A review of the new book by Lai Ubberudby Scott Rose
Celebrity Pets Tell Allby Lai Ubberud
Buy this book from Amazon.com
What are we dog lovers to make of paranormal phenomena in connection with animal companions?
On the one hand, Rupert Sheldrake has done some intriguing experiments related to things said and/or barked in his book Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home. On the other hand, James Randi has long been offering a prize of one million buckaroos to anybody who can demonstrate their psychic powers under controlled circumstances. Nobody has yet succeeded, or even submitted to the test for that matter! So if you, your dog, or both are competent psychics, by all means, get in touch with James Randi.
Meanwhile, psychic Lai Ubberud has published Celebrity Pets Tell All. The correct approach to such a volume, of course, is through a great big sense of fun. The premise is that Lai has concentrated on pics of pets of the rich and famous, communicated with the animals and then spilled the beans. Endorsement blurbs on the back cover come from Dolly the cloned sheep, Benji the movie and TV star, and Mr. Ed the talking horse, who says: "I couldn't have done it better myself."
The preface to Celebrity Pets Tell All is titled Can Animals Talk to People? If you're reading this, you already know the answer to that one. If by chance you don't feel sure about it, though, ask your dog. The section gets around to posing another question: "Is an animal with a diamond collar happier than one with a cheap collar from the local pet store?" Darling, please, I mean, really!
The chapter What Do Celebrity Pets Think About Their Coworkers addresses the diamond collar question, if in an ever so slightly catty manner. Bruiser, the Chihuahua of Legally Blonde fame, is talking to Lai about how he made it big. "I never worried about my size, you know. After all, expensive things can come in small boxes." Right on, Bruiser!
Bruiser the Chihuahua also seeks to clarify to Lai Ubberud the sexuality of the male Rottweiler that fell in love with him in the movie. "We were playing like we were gay, but that's not true," he is alleged to have said. "He's quite the ladies' dog." OK, Bruiser; whatever.
If anything, the psychic seems to have channeled the celebrities' publicists, who then talked through their pets. There isn't anything in the book that the celebs could possibly mind being there. The word fawning comes to mind, with no animal-related pun intended. For example, when Lai tries to learn from Brittney Spears' Chihuahua Bit Bit what the pop star loony is really like, we learn that when she was younger, she cried when she was criticized. Get out your blooming hankies! We're talking about the hypocrite who for years said she was saving herself for marriage, but later admitted she had done it with Justin Timberlake back when, after all, yet all we learn is that when younger, she cried when criticized? Would somebody please add a little spice to this recipe?
Contact with the animal companions of US Presidents provides eye-rolling entertainment. El Alamein and Little Man, Ronald Reagan's horses give us to believe that "Ronnie was everything an animal could hope for." Buddy, William Jefferson Clinton's dog, says of the sex scandals "I wish I could have had a 'dog to man' talk with him but, unfortunately, he was unable to hear me." Perhaps the political lesson to be drawn from this is that nobody should be allowed to serve as President if they are unable to make psychic connections with dogs. How hard is it to believe that Old Yeller, Snoopy or Rin-Tin-Tin could have done a better job running the country than the last two human exemplars?
Paris Hilton's Chihuahua Tinkerbell is said to know Paris "even better than Paris knows herself." Who can be surprised by that, given that science has demonstrated the Chihuahua's powers of penetrating psychological insight? At first, Tinkie was hesitant to talk to Lai Ubberud about Ms. Hilton for fear the psychic would "trash her like some of the reporters." True, Paris sometimes gets treated disrespectfully. A New York storage facility recently angered her by promoting its services with the line "Your closet's so shallow, it makes Paris look deep." But surely one can report facts without trashing Paris and thereby be amusing. After all, Paris and Jenna Jameson have been asked to star in Virgin Territory: "When you win it, you lose it," a new reality show in production. "She didn't lose me, she only forgot to bring me home," Tinkerbell tells Lai Ubberud apropos of the notorious lost Chihuahua incident. Who knows? Maybe Tinkerbell is angling for a new diamond collar there.
Jason Priestly's French bulldog Swifty at first doesn't even want to throw psychic Ubberud a bone. "I was planning to take a nap. Can it wait?" he says, when she's channeling him. Once he wakes up again, he gets challenging. "What guarantee do you have that I won't tell you a pack of lies?" The psychic then promises not to trash Jason Priestly. The sizzling gossip in this one turns out to involve Swifty himself. Swifty, you see, drinks out of toilet bowls. You can even see him doing it, in a video on Jason Priestly's website.
The spirit of Mr. Famous, Audrey Hepburn's dog, is successfully contacted for this book. The psychic is given pause when Mr. Famous says he didn't mind sleeping on pink cushions. "But aren't you colorblind?" she asks. "Well, they smell different," comes the reply. So there you have it. Dogs can, ahem, tell what color something is by the way it smells. The philosophical core of the volume involves questions of what happens after death. "Do Famous Owners and Their Pets Get Together at the Rainbow Bridge?" is one chapter heading. They aren't talking about the Rainbow Bridge in Wagner's Das Rheingold, either. All kinds of dogs and other animals in this book talk about reincarnation and going to heaven. But Mr. Famous takes the prize by telling Ubberud from his position in heaven that when he and Audrey Hepburn reincarnate, he knows they'll be together again on earth. I personally hung around outside Tiffany's on Fifth Avenue for 30 minutes but neither Audrey nor Mr. Famous showed. I did see a bichon frise sporting Gucci sunglasses and a 22-karat gold collar, though, so it wasn't a total loss.
Lassie talks at last in a chapter titled "What do Celebrity Pets Think About Their Coworkers?" This dog does have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, you know. The pooch started out as a character in Eric Knight's novel Lassie Come Home. It lived in Depression-era England, where its poverty-stricken family sold it to a wealthy nobleman who took it to Scotland. Lassie missed the boy in the poverty-stricken family so much that she "escaped" her Scottish life of luxury to find her way back to him. It's called fiction for a reason. Ubberud didn't get in touch with a character in a novel, though. Instead, she channeled Pal, the dog used for the film adaptation with Roddy McDowall. She forces him to confess that though he played a female, he was in fact male. So if you ever wondered why Lassie is never shown peeing, now you know; there's an illusion to be maintained. Besides, female collies shed once a year, hence wouldn't look as good as often, and males are bigger, meaning that little kid actors can convincingly work with them for longer.
You might expect Martha Stewart's Chow Paw Paw to give Ubberud advice on hanging curtains in doghouses. What he provides, though, is insight into the bitter rivalries threatening to break out in nasty cat fights in the competitive pet psychic racket. When Ubberud asks Paw Paw if he'll talk to her, he says that he's had other pet psychics ask him questions, but didn't answer because they were not sincere or honest. "It's rather frustrating," he says, "but I like your energy and you can hear me, so let's have a talk." That's lettin' those other pet psychics have it! Not sincere or honest! You could well scratch your head with your hind leg if what Paw Paw tells Ubberud constitutes "celebrity pets telling all," though. As regards Martha, he says: "She's intelligent and good at everything she does. She's also rather humble." To revert to the Latin, mirabile bleepin' dictu!
Among other animal companions to get the Ubberud treatment are Hilary Duff's Little Dog, George Clooney's pig Max, and Ivana Trump's Choppy and Dodo, who deliver the snarkiest comments in the whole book. Not that it took much to earn the distinction. "What do you think about Donald Trump?" they are asked. "He's okay, but he really needs a good haircut! We don't understand why he doesn't do it. We're sure he has enough money to go to a better hairdresser."
The last page of Celebrity Pets Tell All gives names and URLs for various humane organizations, including Animal Rescue on TV and Petfinder. Given that Lai Ubberud chose to finish her work that way, she's AOK in my book.
