It’s constantly amazing to me just how much light an animal can generate in this world. When I take Heidi, our miniature Daschund, for a walk down Bloor Street, she’s a superstar.
A homeless man looks up from his milk crate, and through a broken-toothed grin he points, shouting, “Weiner!” A half-dozen Japanese girls emerge from a store, and in waves of perfume and giggles, they swarm about us, cooing. With their knees pressed together, they bend down in wonder, uttering mysterious words to my dog.
In front of the church by Walmer, Heidi caught the eye of a loose-limbed and boozy Rasta. In a generous impulse of affection, he lunged out to pet her, but she leaped back, snarling. He looked hurt, sad, even. “Your dog, she no nice, man.”
At the corner of Lippincott and Bloor, an elderly woman stopped us. She slowly bent down, stroking Heidi’s ears. “Oh, they’re velvet! She has velvet ears!” At her own pace, she told us that when she was growing up in Germany she had her very own Dashcund. Schatzie—little sweetheart. “Ah, Schatzie!”, she said, as if she hadn’t thought of the dog in many, many years.
On the way home up Madison a car pulled up beside us. I walked over and saw the driver smiling, pointing at Heidi. “They’re great dogs, aren’t they?!” she shouted. Beside her sat her ten year-old daughter, who, beaming, was holding their new Daschund puppy. The dogs wagged their tails and the people smiled. I thought that the young girl was lucky, not just to have a new pet—her very own Schatzie– but to also have a mother who would stop the car on a Friday afternoon, just to share their happiness with the world amongst them.