… Vie de Chien: A Dog's Life

Notice to Parisians from EDG/GDF (French national electricity and gas utility), 2003


Samba! Scirocco! Satan! The trio of Bois de Boulogne dog-walkers called their pets to heel. My wife Alison and I glanced over to see what the commotion was about. The pit-bullish mutt with the spiked collar and shocking name of Satan had tangled pedigreed Samba and Scirocco's precious Hermès leashes. The three animals and their masters struggled briefly and with aplomb to set things right, then disentangled themselves from each other as quickly as they could. The friction was palpable.

When the incident occurred Alison and I were walking along a tree-lined path near a lake on the fancy, Neuilly-sur-Seine side of the park. As Alison pointed out, there was more to this canine leash conundrum than met the eye. In Paris, dog breeds, dog accessories and dog monikers had tales to tell - about their owners' social, educational and marital status, even their political leanings.

"Satan is such a suburban name," sniffed Samba's matron as we edged our way by on the lakeside path. Scirocco's glamorous owner agreed, using a gloved finger to indicate the unfashionable outskirts on the far side of the park, where Satan and his tattooed female owner, la patronne, as she put it, appeared to be heading. "You never know anymore whom you might meet at the ends of a leash, not even in le bois," Madame Samba acknowledged. The two ageing socialites, who did not seem to know each other previously, now shared conspiratorial confidences as their purebred animals licked and mounted each other.

"Owning a dog," remarked Alison, a Paris native, "is the best way to get to know people here."….