My dog's social life

 

Paddy (left) and Sherlock (right) at a beach party.

My dog has a more active social life than I do, even more so during the pandemic. 

From the time we brought him home as a three-month old pup, the villagers fell in love with him. "Bonjour, Sherlock," they would say before remembering to say bonjour to us. And if we were without him, "Ou est Sherlock?"  

His first summer he became part of a weekly walking group. Notice I said "he." Many of the women in the group had a dog. One did not. She borrowed Sherlock who trotted off happily with the group without a backward glance. He's okay to leave us, but does not like us to leave him.

 

Then there was the English woman caught by one the French shutdowns. She was willing to break the one kilometer limit and walk to the Château Valmy, two kilometers away, almost every day.

Sherlock messed this up for himself. One day the woman wanted to go to another place. Sherlock wanted to go to Valmy and staged a sit-down strike. She brought him home and didn't take him again. She went back to the U.K. shortly after.

My dog has also been to BBQs, beach parties, picnics and apèros with his human friends where we are not included. This isn't rejection, it is like all social life that sometimes you do something with one group, sometimes with others. Sherlock seems to participate in all groups.