Ladies and gentlemen... the Spurners!

I'm told that dogs will regulate their own weight, unless they have feeding issues that might interfere. They may, for example, eat less so they will carry less weight in the hot summer, then eat more again to bulk up for winter's scarcities. My dogs seem to be doing this now, but they have different styles. Tralfaz, who turned into a pretty good member of the Clean Plate Club in maturity, has been leaving about a quarter of his grub in the bowl at each meal. Nipper, on the other hand, just randomly spurns meals.

It's so weird, because as I mentioned when we got him three years ago, Nipper was the hungriest puppy in the world. He was insulted if someone else was getting food while he was hungry, even after he'd eaten. How dare you! Starving here! But of course that frantic growth period wore off, and he turned into an ordinary eater, though always a good trencherman. Lately, though, he's got a new nickname: The Spurner!

"How'd he do on breakfast?"

"The Spurner is back."

Nipper and the Spurners could have been a one-hit wonder in the sixties.

"The Spurners' 'I Kibble You Not' got to #52 on the charts on this date in 1965!"

Spurn has always been one of those words that make me smile. It's so useful, but in a haughty and old-fashioned way. It makes mere rejection sound so much more important.

I spurn your book of hamster poems.

I don't merely eschew kale, I spurn it.

Discounted tickets to the new Broadway musical, Scout 'n Boo, based on To Kill a Mockingbird? Guess what?

Spurn away!

And spurn always makes me think of a scene in George MacDonald Fraser's great comic history novel, The Pyrates.

The Pyrates is a madcap story of Captain Benjamin Avery, for whom every woman falls, the kind of hero that makes other men feel they are wearing mismatched socks, who must fight the ferocious pirate brotherhood to save a priceless crown and rescue his beloved blonde. One woman who falls for him like a sack of rocks is the lovely Spanish heiress Meliflua. At once point he and she must disguise themselves to sneak into Viceroy Don Lardo's ball, him as a Spanish grandee, her as a young stripling:

Stripling (pathetically): I can ask for thee man I love -- thee 'an'some, nobble, yummy, croo-el Capteen Ben 'oo spurns me!

Grandee: Oh, come off it, I don't!

Stripling: You do! Spurn, spurn --

Grandee: Oh, Meliflua, we've been through all that, and it boots not, honestly.

I think of that every time spurning comes up. If you read the book, you might too. But there are so many wonderful bits in The Pyrates that if I quoted them all, you basically would have read the book.

So find it and dig in. You want some light summer reading? Then spurn it not.