Dawin Apollo Son of the Gods is ready for his close-up.
“You say ‘Vogue’ and he starts giving you poses,” the standard poodle’s human companion, Vivian Hatiras, says when she and Apollo drop by the Courier office for a Year of the Dog cover shoot.
On this day, however, Apollo is all Blue Steel. As a dozen colleagues take photos of photographer Dan Toulgoet taking Apollo’s photo, Apollo looks straight into Toulgoet’s camera lens as if to say, “Of course I’m wearing a crown and sitting in a big white throne as people swoon over me. I own this look. I am this look.”
And yet Apollo somehow retains a hint of humbleness in the resulting cover photo. Now that’s a good modelling trick.
Apollo was chosen for the Courier's Year of the Dog cover to illustrate a point as we prepare to celebrate the Lunar New Year: when isn’t it the Year of the Dog in Vancouver?
Although not every dog is as pampered as Apollo, this is a dog-obsessed city. (Thankfully, that obsession also includes a willingness to scoop the poop, although people with sidewalk-facing gardens wish people would also be as considerate about where they let their dog pee.)
As Apollo obviously thrives on being fawned over at the Courier office, Hatiras is asked when Apollo realized he was so, so...
“Fabulous? He was born that way, like Lady Gaga,” she says, adding that Apollo’s cousin, Dawin — the name of the breeder — Hearts on Fire won the poodle category in the 2015 Westminster Dog Show.
When she got Apollo as a puppy six years ago, they lived on an acreage in Maple Ridge, where Apollo took his guard dog duties seriously. Apollo didn’t find his fashion groove until they moved to Vancouver.
Apollo might not have a closet full of clothes but there is a cupboard of coats, vests and dress-up accessories that are often on display on Apollo’s Instagram account. (“It started out being my Instagram account. but I thought, ‘Who cares about me?’ and I changed it to his,” Hatiras says, taking out her phone to scroll through her photo files. “It’s all him, all the time.”)
Although she didn’t get Apollo’s fur cut for the first year, doing all the grooming herself, Apollo is now a faithful devotee of a monthly visit to Pet Shop Boys. With such a mane of beautiful black fur, and the confidence that allows him to pull off any look, Apollo has often walked out of his spa treatment with a variety of Nora Desmond-worthy styles.
There are, Hatiras knows, some people who would scoff at the coif. But she also knows there are many more people who understand her deep bond with her dog.
“He’s woven into all aspects of my life,” she says. A mortgage broker, she often brings him to appointments where he wins the hearts of co-workers and clients alike.
“He gets away with everything because he’s elegant and charming,” she says.
On those days when he doesn’t accompany her to work, when she walks through the door at home, there’s nothing like being welcomed by a dog who is genuinely happy to see you. “No matter what your day was like, the dog greets you — every day, no matter what.”
And every day, no matter, Dawin Apollo Son of the Gods knows he gladly remains the canine sun of her universe.
Apollo’s grooming for the photo is by Pet Shop Boys, which also supplied the white throne.
