Portland Dog Bowl

Taking a break from Milestone Madness for a moment, here's an entirely different (and even tinier) object to talk about. This little guy is the "Portland Dog Bowl", a tiny fountain in the North Park Blocks. It's supposed to be a sort of Benson Bubbler drinking fountain for dogs, designed to look like a regular dog bowl. You will not be completely surprised to learn it was created by William Wegman, the Weimaraner guy, for the short-lived Pearl Arts Foundation.

Btw, I'm not even going to bother with a Google map this time. The Dog Bowl is just way too small to even show up on satellite photos.



I've always thought it was kind of cute and clever. I tend to get annoyed at our fair city's obsession with all things canine, but I still think this is kind of cool. Portland Public Art dismisses it as "silly", and you can't really argue that it isn't silly. But still, "silly" is better than a lot of the stuff that gets funded and built here.

Also worth passing along is this 2002 WSJ story about the then-new fountain. You might note the page lives at the University of Oklahoma rather than the WSJ. It seems this story was one of several pieces that inspired a university benefactor to endow a literary prize to reward quality writing. So go, read it.



I guess I ought to point out that a number of other fountains around town have facilities for horses and dogs; the Skidmore, the Thompson Elk, and the Horse Trough Fountain all come to mind immediately. And you don't have to wander around downtown for long before you see someone's pit bull drinking from a Benson Bubbler. Which isn't technically allowed, but go ahead, you tell them to stop.