Pooches Have Their Day

Ticker tapes on British television outlets can’t have enough of it in announcing that former prime minister Tony Blair has been bestowed the realm’s most senior knighthood by the Queen in her New Year’s honors dole.

It is celebration time at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), headquarters in Southwater in the Horsham District of West Sussex, England.

The RSPCA patron is no other but Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

The champaign can’t stop running, after all it was the RSPCA that had championed the cause of the former chief executive who was prime minister for a full decade (1997 to 2007).

RSPCA chair René Olivieri and Fiona Evans, director of people and culture, who led the effort couldn’t believe it when their campaign was hugely topped with a bonus, when Blair, instead of a plain knighthood that are less than a dime a dozen in Her Majesty’s realm, was appointed at the highest echelon, Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter.

They had argued that among the eight animals recognized for bravery and service during World War 2 (WW2), in fact Chips, an Army dog, was even posthumously awarded with a medal of bravery.

In 1943, the U.K. instituted the PDSA Dickin Medal to honor the work of animals in WW2 - a bronze medallion, bearing the words "For Gallantry" and "We Also Serve."

Kuno, a British military dog who charged through enemy gunfire to save the lives of British soldiers fighting in Afghanistan was awarded the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross.

Even, the dearest British ally, the United States honors pups that serve, the American Humane Society's Lois Pope K-9 Medal of Courage.

In their submission to the Monarch, RSPCA argued that Blair was widely recognized as the America’s poodle for his support for President George W. Bush in his Iraq campaign. In fact, Bush loved the pet so much that in his two-page tribute presented on Blair’s last day in office, he described him as “a strong guy.”

Blair, often hailed as ‘Teflon Tony’, was ever alive with the colonist spirit, which is claiming wealth and dredging it to the bowels of The City – the shrunken kingdom’s piggybank. Her Majesty’s attention was also drawn to Blair’s work in reshaping the party, as "New Labor" to distance itself from previous Labor politics and the traditional idea of socialism.

Olivieri requested the Monarch, a dog lover herself, to consider that Bush had reacted thus, ‘I’ve heard he’s been called ‘Bush’s poodle’. He’s bigger than that’. The RSPCA chair drew Her Majesty’s attention to her own immaculately trained canines, that Blair, whenever Bush asked him to ‘jump’, he would ask, ‘how high?’. Indeed, considered his unmitigated loyalty, Bush had a magical relationship with his mutt, and both would jump together.

The Monarch’s attention was drawn to the fact poodles emit pretty sounds, which was reflected in George W. Bush acclaiming Blair as “very articulate” and admitted to coveting his oratory skills.

Given the proclivity of the IQ that the 43rd president of the United States harbored, this may seem to be a mundane achievement on part Anthony Charles Lynton Blair who occupied an office that had been established in 1721. Appealing to the Monarch, Olivieri said that the Queen may consider that Bush had hoped that the Iraq would “turn out to be a positive legacy for us both.” Indeed, Bush has become a painter and even one who the Democrats relied on in castigating Donald Trump as he aspired to become the 45th president.

Of course, Olivieri’s final words did the rest when he pointed out to the Monarch that Blair has the instinct to fetch any object, in any state it may be, if it was sufficiently coated with cash.

The Queen, not unaware about the pooches’ selectiveness when directed to fetch objects, did not need any government advice for bestowing this honor.

Following the public declaration, Anthony Charles Lynton Blair was summoned to the Ballroom at Buckingham Palace, Her Majesty daintily touched the sword on his shoulder and harked, “Arise Sir Anthony.”