“If I were a bitch, I’d be in love with Biff Truesdale. Biff is perfect. He’s friendly. good-looking. rich, famous, and in excellent physical condition. He almost never drools. He’s not afraid of commitment. He wants children-actually, he already has children and wants a lot more. He works hard and is a consummate professional. but he also knows how to have fun.”

Susan Orleans grabs the attention of the reader by seeming perverse, but really plays around with canine terminology in this piece. “Bitch” being used to describe a female dog, she lures the eyes to continue reading to figure out whom this man is that she is willing to be a bitch for.  Her writing style is simple, easy to follow, and colorful. She brings the character to life by personifying his emotions, even comparing him to Bill Clinton. Biff is a professional and he understands his abilities. He fluidly follows his celebrity caliber schedule and exemplifies traits of an actual human being. Even with the description of his most subtle actions like rolling his eyes, or sighing out of contempt.

The roles of the human and canine seem reversed in this story as the reporter takes on the role of the idle bystander, the usual role of a pet. She uses phrases like ” as I pawed through the files” to accomplish this. Her thorough use of canine terms tie this piece together and always remind the reader that this dog “with an attitude” is in fact a glorified pet and not the suave (human) gentlemen that we imagine him as.

I think her use of syntax and the flow of this story is what I plan on taking to use in my article. It’s about not doing too much and using sentence structure that captures the same essence as the character. Orleans’ tone was witty yet simple. Her descriptions of Biff’s owners, handlers, and their interactions with the dog were well executed because they were not polluted with complicated sentences. The piece therefore read itself. When writing a profile piece, the writer should not try to impress the reader with fancy vernacular, but be the clearest you can be to properly capture the subject.