Shrink to Fit

Possibly the biggest surprise we´ve found with our Brazilian dog is other people´s reaction to him. They´re TERRIFIED. It’s not that the Brazilians don’t like dogs – most of them have a fluffy little pooch of some description that they dress up and carry around in their doggy handbags and the place is awash with funky accessory stores. But they just don’t do big dogs.

Ours hasn’t even learnt to bark yet but the pizza boy insists on delivering over the wall rather than via the gate; every time our faulty alarm goes off the muscle-bound heavies from the local security company insist on doing an exterior-only patrol; and fellow dog walkers wanting to engage us in friendly doggy conversation do so from a safe distance of 20 yards. Which isn’t particularly helping our efforts to slot seamlessly and invisibly into Brazilian life. Had we realized this we would almost certainly have chosen a fluffy model ourselves but too late. Our giant pup is part of the family now and here he stays. It just amuses me that people can’t see that underneath his angelic little face, the toddler temper tantrums of our youngest are in fact WAY more scary than our big softie of a dog.