JUNE 3, 2010 / THE SOURCE WEEKLY / 13


Who’s Your Bowser? Interviews by Sara Roth


The newest dog craze to hit Central Oregon Photos by Elise Jones


You’ve seen them in the grocery store, on the river trail, even walking down the street in plain daylight. They’re “Bowsers”— people who bear an almost genetic resemblance to their dogs. They could be like fraternal twins, matched at birth, or like an elderly couple who slowly, over the years, have grown more and more similar, until they have the same expressions and mannerisms. They could be your neighbors or even your wife. Hell, take a look at you and your dog. Did you just scratch your ear with your foot?


Cody Chance, student, and Barf, Australian Shepard/Golden Retriever mix Two years ago, Cody Chance went to the Humane Society of Central Oregon with a friend


who was looking to adopt. While walking through the kennels, Chance saw a blonde dog and thought, “He looks just like John Candy in Spaceballs! He’s the cutest damn mutt there is.”


Instead of waiting for a volunteer to let him see Barf, Chance said, “Screw it. I jumped


Wendy Schecter, owner of Affordable People Solutions & Celebrating the Sacred and Luci Pearl, Pug


that fence and bought him that day. Best investment I’ve ever made.” Barf now has his own Facebook page and probably has more friends than you.


Wendy Schecter has owned Pugs since ’94 and is pleasantly surprised that she’s begun resembling the breed. “I’ve learned to respect them so much that I think I’m morphing,” she says. “They’re the clowns of the dog family—they’re very loving. I think if people were more like them, it would be a better world.”


Kaycee Anseth-Townsend, artist and Kelty, Husky/Pomeranian mix


Kaycee Anseth-Townsend looks most like Kelty when her ever-changing hair color is


strawberry blonde. However, when people get to know the pair, the similarities are more evident. “We both oscillate from slightly aloof and serious to extremely effervescent pretty quickly,” she says. “Spastic may be a better term.” “Kelt is my artistic sidekick,” says Anseth-Townsend. “When she was a puppy, she


destroyed a tube of yellow oil paint and looked like Big Bird for a week. Last Spring, she ate a part of one of Jo Lundberg’s mixed-media pieces that was still in progress (this was only funny in retrospect, after a vet visit). She pretty much thinks that she and her best friend Nakita (a mini American Eskimo) run the PoetHouse.”


Suzanne Landen, manager of Flatbread Pizza and Kaya, Chow/Red Heeler mix


“My friend pawned Kaya off on me,” says Suzanne Landen. Kaya had been abandoned at the shelter at six months old with a broken leg. “The [vet] didn’t reset it—they just put a cast on her. As soon as she could put weight on it again, they sent her back to the shelter.” So her friend decided to give Kaya to Landen. “Nobody knows what she is,” says Landen. “I can’t go anywhere without every single


person we pass asking me what kind of dog she is. I wish I had a dollar for every time someone asked me what kind of dog she was. I’d be a millionaire. I would.”


K9


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