Recurring themes

"Freestyle" dog dancing continues to thrive, at least in British Columbia (where the first organization sprang up in 1999, amassing an 8,000-person mailing list, as News of the Weird reported). A Globe and Mail dispatch in April noted that Gail Walsh's school for dog dancing, Paws2Dance, teaches moves like dog "weaves" around its human partner's legs and "backups," in which the dog sets its own paces apart from its partner. Holding the dog's paws and waltzing, as in at-home dog-dancing, is apparently tacky and nonartistic and thus never allowed.