The Dog thing

So, I've spent the last 6 months wondering which the French like more: their children, or their dogs. Don't get me wrong, the French adore their children, from what I see, being a child in Paris is a nice gig if you can get it.

But the French seem to have a very unusual relationship with their dogs. They constantly walk them and have exquisite little coats that Fido wears for his walk. And Fido can poop wherever he wants on the sidewalk, and no one seems to mind. There are some fussy damn little dogs in this town as well (Chupa, that's you!). Countless numbers of Pomeranians with their hair teased out so they look like a furry basketball. Stores everywhere that specialize in dog paraphernalia.

There is one dog in the neighborhood that is ugly as all get-out. He looks like a chihuahua, only with random sprigs of wiry white fur sticking out. His dad owns an art gallery on rue St. Paul. So we always see this scrappy little dog watching the world go by fromt he front door of the gallery. We both think he's kind of cute in his own way. We've even seen his dad riding a bike with the dog in the front basket.

So at the beginning of April, we noticed that they were displaying several pieces of art in the window that look exactly like the scrappy dog. We went by for a closer look one night, and the owner came out while we were looking. He explained that the display was his version of an April Fools Joke. His dog is named 'Pique' (not sure I spelled it right, pronounced like 'peek'). He's painted several paintings of the dog, and done a little sculpture of his ugly head. Most of the paintings had a play on words involved. He explained them to us, which was a little hard for me with my broken french. But one that I did understand was very cute. It was a cubist style painting of the dog sitting down. He calles it "Pique assis", which is pronounced 'peek-ah-see'. Translated it means 'Pique sitting'. He said "Pique assis, not Picasso".

Tonight the Pique shrine was gone, just like all the cute doggie coats are being put away now that Spring is here.