Dogs

I love dogs, I really do, but not like some people love their pet canines.  When I first came to Germany, I was quite surprised (shocked might be a better word) to find dogs accompanying their owners everywhere from work to shops to restaurants.  We sometimes even had a dog under the table while eating out, as my sister-in-law often brought her dog along.  I found it hilarious that there were  special words for the master ("Herrchen") und mistress ("Frauchen") of man's best friend, not to mention a whole vocabulary of commands.


This was not the experience I had with pet dogs.  When I was four, my parents brought us Chipper, a frightened little collie puppy that grew up with my siblings and me.  Other dogs came and went in our lives, but this was the one I loved the most.  He was just so affectionate and beautiful, and proved it too by winning first prize in the only dog show I ever entered him in (a very big deal for me in Junior High School).  Still we all treated him more like an animal than one of the family.  He was let out in the morning and back in at night, roaming the neighborhood freely as all the dogs did then (unless, ofcourse, someone down the street called to say that the dog catcher was driving around -- then we brought him in).  He got a dish full of wet and dry dog food mixed every evening, and if he was lucky and someone (mostly me) thought about it, he got a haphazard brushing too.  Otherwise he was on his own to do his dog stuff.  When Chipper died from a cancerous tumor sometime around my 16th birthday, I was heartbroken, but life did go on.


I thought it was like that for everyone with their pets, and only when I got to Germany did I realize there were many ways to keep a dog.  Here I noticed that dogs were truly considered family members and aside from strict feeding and walking schedules, they were often taken to obedience and/or agility school.  I could understand the argument for leashes -- this area has a denser population then where I come from -- but it was more difficult to accept the reason for friends not going to the movies with us: they could not or would not leave their dogs home alone (cinemas are one place I don't think dogs have ever been allowed).  It occurred to me then that owning a dog here was like a hobby, time-consuming and not inexpensive, considering insurance, vet and maintenence costs to name a few.


But I was to learn that this was not just a German phenomenon.  When I was pregnant with our first child, an American friend asked if we could keep her dog for the week she and her husband were planning to visit Moscow.  I agreed, thinking how difficult could it be to keep a tiny Pekinese for 7 days, but I knew I was in trouble when she told me what kind of beef to buy and cook for his dinner.  This was her baby, as in a classic second wife situation, her husband had told her categorically he was not willing to have any more children.  Ok, ok, I could cook for the dog, but I drew the line when she asked if he could sleep in our bed (somehow he ended up there anyway).  All went well until we decided to be good Germans and take the dog for a walk on a leash.  It was a beautiful but bitter cold Sunday afternoon with half the German population out for a stroll (a favorite Sunday pastime) when Chris and I set out with our four-footed friend, patches of ice still lurking on our chosen path near the river.  I waddled along carefully, as my baby bump was huge, so when the dog suddenly slipped its little head out of the leash and took off down the road, only Chris could run after him.  I tried hard not to laugh, even though the ensuing pursuit looked very much like something directly out of a Charlie Chaplin film, complete with an arm-flailing fall.  The situation was serious -- I knew my friend would be devastated if anything were to happen to her darling.  Luckily, Chris caught up with the little runaway, and holding the animal tightly in his arms, we made a beeline for home, never again setting foot outside our tiny backyard with that dog.


The years went by and I continued to observe my German friends' passion with their canine pets.  I was again lulled into the belief that it was a cultural thing.  Then a few years ago I took a short trip to the States, where I met the latest in-law addition to the family, just after her first baby was born.  Well, first human baby.  Her husband went shopping with us one day and shrewdly bought not only new clothes for his newborn son, but also 2 costumes for his wife's dogs (it was February, NOT October for heaven's sake!).  Clearly this was the same level of dedication as in Germany.


And then this fall we visited New York City.  In one section of the city I felt like I had died and mistakenly gone to dog heaven, trumping all that I had yet seen in Germany.  Dog parks, dog walkers and signs for a dogs' Halloween party were just the beginning.  We passed an indoor dog playground, a dog portrait studio and several dog grooming centers.  Most likely they have these kinds of facilities in the big cities here too --  I just haven't been looking for them.  Maybe German and American dog owners aren't so very different after all.  But I still think only in a German eating establishment could you find a sign like the elegantly scripted one hanging in the upscale café where Claudia and I had tea yesterday: "Dogs should be kept on a short leash".