The other day my mom was telling me stories that involved a Frenchman. “The Frenchman would have come too, if we’d had more time to get ready,” she said. I’d never heard her talk about a Frenchman before, and I wondered if my parents had made a new neighbor friend, someone who’d just moved from Paris perhaps. “Oh, I felt so bad when we left. He knew we were leaving him too. He sat by the door and barked and ran around us. That Frenchman, he’s a smart one.” It dawned on me that the Frenchman was not a baguette-eating neighbor after all. He was my sister’s maltipom, Petrie.
To hear my mom talking so affectionately about a dog these days is a bit shocking. Growing up my mom was the complete opposite of a dog person. Actually, she was anti-pets in general. Our hamsters Brownie and Fluffy mysteriously “ran away to the forest” even though we lived in the middle of a bustling city with shopping malls and freeways for miles and miles around us. When I’d see a kitten and reach down to pet it, she’d warn that the cat might scratch my eyes out, as “cats are often known to do.”
But then, when Sophie brought Petrie home one day, everything changed. All of a sudden my mom had a new grandson, whom she talked openly and warmly about to everyone. She had nicknames for him that corresponded to his personality traits and his different moods. Contrary to everything I had known about my mom and her feelings towards animals for the past 20 years, she had become… a dog person.
I’ve always loved all kinds of animals, dogs especially, but I’m still not quite sure if I could ever have my own dog. I wonder though, if I did one day get a dog, if I’ll ever become as extreme as some of the dog people I’ve heard about. Like the friend of a friend who sends her dog to doggie daycare so he can socialize and who rushes home the second she drops him off to watch him play with the other dogs via online streaming video that the daycare sets up. I swear it will never happen to me, but I guess that’s what everyone says. After all, I never thought I’d hear my mom telling stories about a Frenchman.
What do you think about extreme dog/cat people? Are you one of them? Did that surprise you?
(second photo by Jamie Beck)
That is THE MOST ADORABLE dog EVER!!!! And now I want one and I'll call him The Frenchman! And I'm not even a dog person!!
Your sisters dog is SO CUTE! I do pet sitting here in LA and usually I prefer cat visits but if someone had a cute pup like him here I'd definitely make an exception! 🙂
I love your mom's warning about cats scratching your eyes, it's so effective. Haha! Robbie and I are totally weird dog people. We always calculate how long we are going to be away from home in the back of our minds, so we can make sure we have someone check on our pup. Or I talk to my dog as if she can actually understand me.
Plus, I think my dog is the cutest thing I've ever seen. I'm completely blinded by love.
MY Frenchman!! Hahaha.. It really is crazy how much Lok Mah has turned around in her value for dogs. This was a great read, sister bear 🙂
I love dogs and didn't think that I'd become that crazy dog person who treats their animals like kids. I can still say that I don't coddle Scott's dog…er…scratch that… "our" dog like it's child. I must admit though I bought the dog a second Christmas outfit (that she doesn't fit into). I think it's funny seeing dogs in clothes… so it's really for my own amusement than being a crazy dog person, right?
What a funny story…my mom definitely is not an animal person. Given that we weren't allowed to wear our shoe in the house, I figured it was a cleanliness thing and all asian parents must be like this. Of course that theory was proven false.
I think I'm one of those people…about my cats. I love to tell stories about them and just love to cuddle them….sometimes it reminds me of when my son was a baby, to cuddle a tiny warm furball.