Ella the poodle's unhappy reaction to her portrayal in new novel: "Call my lawyer at once!"
Invasion of privacy. Unauthorized biography. Poodle protocol violation.
Shocking accusation: Poopsie the Poodle, the sometimes star of the novel OVER MY HEAD, may be modeled after real-life apricot poodle Ella Lamba.
“We are not amused,” barks Ella’s lawyer, who points to allegedly insulting comments such as the following from Marie Lamba’s new young adult novel:
I pick her up and rub her pom-pom ears. “No more surprises, okay?” She licks me in the nostril. We’re the best of friends. “Okay, I’ll see you later.” I set her down.
Poopsie does her head tilt thing again like she’s trying to understand. It must be tough having a brain the size of a walnut. I wave bye and she tilts her head the other way, suddenly seeming sad and lonely. I leave and lock the door, feeling sad myself. Poor Poopsie.
“This is an outrage,” says the attorney for real poodle Ella. “Brain like the size of a walnut? It’ll be poor author once this is dragged through the courts.”
Lamba the author went on record saying, “It’s fiction. And it’s supposed to be funny.”
“Funny?” the attorney said. “In this novel Poopsie, who is obviously modeled after my client, is insulted, dressed in American Girl clothes, even misplaced.”
“But no dogs were harmed in the writing of this novel,” Lamba said in a weak voice. “I love my dog. Sang, the character in the novel, loves Poopsie and does her best to take care of her. It’s not Sang’s fault the dog is a little loopy. I mean, wait. Not loopy. Can you strike that? What I’m saying is off the record, right? Right?”
Later, after this blatantly anti-poodle comment, TMZ caught up to Ella the poodle at her favorite posh doggie spa, and asked for her reaction to this latest insult.
But Ella, ever the classy one, just rolled her eyes and would only reply, “Grrr.”
Marie Lamba, author 