Poodles on ice. The dog in the foreground seems to have been struck with total insanity by the proces of performing on ice.

Soules was an aeralist, a trapeze swinger. Here's the twist: he lived in fear of falling. A nervous wreck.

Eventually he fell hard, in 1964, and said: hey, that's enough of that. He did some plate-spinning in the circus, then decided he would spend his life dresing up dogs.

According to the Weekly World News in 1989, Schumacher - on the right, i believe - died in 1982. The story says Soules went to court to have him exhumed and buried in Michigan.

As best as I can sum it up the rest of the story: in 1992 Soules picked up a hitchhiker names Fred Steese, took him out to dinner, and - as the court documents put it - “the two formed a sexual relationship.” Love at first sight, I guess. Soules offered Steese a job in the dog act, since he was doing Vegas now. Steese said sure, but when it came time to do a background check, he was turned down over a felony beef in Florida. As the court docssay:

Steese decided to move on, so Soules dropped him off at a freeway exit ramp.   Steese then purchased and drank a twelve-pack of beer.   Intoxicated and impecunious, Steese decided to return to Soules' trailer in order to steal his VCR.

When it became dark, Steese went to Soules' trailer.  He entered and pulled out all the nightlights in order to make the trailer completely dark.   While removing the VCR, Steese heard Soules stirring in the bedroom, so he grabbed “an object that was round and heavy” and struck Soules' head with it.   Soules ran into the bathroom and shut the door.   Steese obtained a knife from the kitchen, then “rushed in there [the bathroom] and stabbed him in the chest and stomach area, slicing him and he was quiet, he fell to the ground.”   During the confession, Risenhoover asked Steese how many times he had stabbed Soules, to which Steese replied, “I don't know.   Maybe 100.”

He got life, and then some. Soules was 56.