“Oh my, how cute is he!” “She is a female.” “Oh dear, how cute is she… what is race?” “He’s a little French Bulldog with pointy Boston Terrier ears.”
Here is the restitution of the dialogue that I establish regularly, say three times a day at least with strangers, since I became at the end of July co-parent of an adorable little dog of 3 months (soon to be 4), named Sally. Animal lovers like those who cannot control them had warned me that my life was about to change, but I had underestimated their warnings. Having a dog transforms you and makes you discover, in a paradoxical way, a whole section of the humanity that surrounds you.
In a few weeks, you realize that the canine population is of such magnitude that it leaves its mark everywhere. Dogs are now an integral part of French daily life. We come across them in the mountains on hikes as well as at the sea, in hotels and in transport, in very small villages as in large cities, in housing estates and in the suburbs… At work too, more and more more. At café and restaurant terraces, I counted that at least a third of customers had a dog on a leash at their feet or under their table, which is in line with the most recent evaluations of the Société centrale canine, of which the barometer of relations between dogs and the French was published last April.
Frenchman’s best friend
In every place, a kind of brotherhood of dog owners is quickly set up because these masters and mistresses share, beyond all that opposes them, similar concerns. They are driven by the same questions: where will their doggie be able to relieve himself, will he socialize easily with other dogs, etc. Take the test and travel with a dog one day: you will immediately relax the atmosphere, you will loosen your tongues and you will create social ties wherever you go. Automatically, the discussion begins: we speak to men as well as women, to children and to the elderly, to ladies with small dogs as well as to bearded men with Husky.
From the dog, we pass quickly to the human; a recalcitrant waiter softens at the sight of the animal, a mother tells you about her difficulties, a couple of bikers want to take pictures of your pup, a German tourist begins to cry as she hugs him. You need to have spent a few hours in the veterinary emergency room, on a Friday evening in August, between a neurasthenic rabbit, a diarrheal Chihuahua and a dying Labrador, to understand the sincerity and the depth of the feelings that dogs trigger in humans. According to the survey published by the Société centrale canine, it is the prospect of his future death which, even before the cost or the logistical inconvenience, discourages the French from adopting a dog. The dog provides, in uncertain and brutal times, the assurance of constant and repeated affection. It acts as a real anxiolytic on legs thanks to its capacity for empathy.
Canine Archipelago
The cynophilia of our compatriots does not entirely erase the differences and, past the moment of wonder at the solidarity between masters, the contours of the canine archipelago quickly rebound. City sores have their fashionable breeds, starting with the “primitives” that abound in trendy neighborhoods: Shiba Inu of Japanese origin, dwarf Spitz with the photogenic hair collar prized by influencers, Cavalier King Charles, etc. Chic caniparcs become places of interpersonality in trendy and gentrified neighborhoods, a bit like the school map is the expression of French social segregation. In peri-urban and family France, it is the Australian Shepherd who reigns supreme, followed closely by the Golden Retriever and the Staffie. The American Staffordshire Terrier or “amstaff” retains a reputation as a dog and a new Pitbull…
Despite this segmentation, the dog remains an object of consensus. Politically, it attracts the favors of conservative bourgeois who own hunting dogs but also seduces progressives and environmentalists under the protection of animal welfare. The dog is from all parties, from the National Rally, whose candidates know how to play on this attachment of peripheral and popular France to pets, especially in the young and female electorate, to Emmanuel Macron, who adopted Nemo in 2017 , a Labrador Retriever-Griffon cross who had found refuge at the SPA.