The idealization of homes as simultaneously sites of technologically enabled efficiency and places where “natural” relationships could be sustained fed into approaches to dog keeping more generally. Writing to Our Dogs in 1939, an anonymous correspondent signing as “A Kennelmaid” put forward a proposal for what she termed an “ideal kennel.” Like the ideal parlors and kitchens that played such a significant role in 1930s domestic culture, this kennel was to be organized in accordance with what the writer referred to as “time-saving, rather than labor-saving” principles. [note: 'A Kennel Maid, “My Ideal Kennel,” Our Dogs, no. 116 (18 August 1939): 484. The trend appears to have originated in the United States. See Grier, Pets in America, 304–12; Richard V. N. Gambrill (withJ. C. Mackenzie), Sporting Stables and Kennels (New York, 1935).']' (312)