funny how
nation of dog lovers
You know you’re in Germany when you can saunter into a department store carrying your dog on a leash. The dog accompanies you up the escalator, looking longingly across at the fluffy bunnies quivering in their mesh cages down in the pet department. When the dog starts barking and kicks up a fuss in the queue to pay for haberdashery findings, and everyone turns with expressions of indulgent affection, that’s when you know you’re in Germany. When the woman staffing the cash register leans in to ask confidingly, Darf er eine Leckerli haben? Is he allowed to have a little treat? She has drawn open her cash drawer and pulled out a little bag of crackling dog treats. She gazes over the counter at the dog with a doting expression. She says, Mäuschen? my little mousie-mouse? wouldn’t you like a little yummy treat? The people at the next register have stopped their transaction to watch. Everybody is smiling fondly. The dog takes the treat politely, then drops it to the floor. His owner, known in German as the Herrchen, the little husband of the dog, bends to pick it up and then the dog takes it and gulps it down. An elderly lady in the queue says, That’s right. He takes it only from his Herrchen.
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Awww! How lovely! ????
It was so sweet, Bronwen. And I don’t experience this gooeyness about dogs as sentimentality – it seems to be genuine affection – that is, Germany generally treat each other fairly civilly, too. I love the courteous beggars who hold doors open to collect money for heroin. The way everyone in a stairwell or elevator will say, Good morning, and then, I wish you a good rest of the day.
You’re making me want to move there! (If it wasn’t for the cold).
Yes – the cold. And what really chills me: the perennial greyness. This is why Germans need dogs.
Touching observation, as usual Cathoel. Traveling Europe I couldn’t get over the dogs sharing human spaces. In Prague I was exiting my stately hotel room one morning just as the neighbouring door opened and out strutted ein hund mit Herrchen, oblivious to my wide eyed stare. And wider smile.
Hah! Sue, what a lovely story. It does feel odd, to a traveller, to encounter dogs in posh places and formal places, doesn’t it. I’m always surprised in a bar or in a restaurant to find someone has laid their cold nose on my ankle.
So true.
Always Surprising, especially when the cold nose is canine.
Sweet
…????
Cripes!