Do Dogs Bark in French?

This was the first question my six year old son asked me when we arrived in Paris. Desperate for a dog before we left the UK, we have to postpone getting one for at least another two years as we are downsizing to a flat which won’t accommodate one. Adding insult to injury, he was also still in mourning about leaving his stuffed dog at the airport. How was he going to survive without his treasured companion since birth, in a foreign city in a strange bed whilst all his other cuddlies were in a box on their way across the chunnel??

I indulged his naivety for these reasons, feeling that somehow bridging the ‘Band of Brothers’ in dogworld so to speak, would help alleviate his fears of living in another country. ‘No,’ I replied ‘they all bark in the same language, they can all understand each other’. Then of course the next question was why do people speak different languages, why did he have to learn French, etc. etc.

Maybe I should have been honest about these differences in language and culture from the start. Maybe I should have said, yes dogs in Paris bark in French, they are louder and more rude than English dogs and poo everywhere just to spite the world.

Maybe if I would have laid it all out on the line then and there, with dogs as my scapegoat for generalizing all Parisians, just maybe he would have felt a bit more prepared for the changes he has struggled so hard with over the past few months.

As we play our daily game of ‘Spot the Chien’ on our way to school, I am glad he still views these furry creatures in a universal way, for if he really thought they were French the game would be ‘Spot another bloody chien with piles of merde everywhere around it’.

Saving grace – have not stepped in ‘merde du chien’ as of yet, and beloved Dogger was found at the airport and flew unaccompanied to Paris to reunite with his anxious owner.