On Friendly Dogs and the Ego Thing.

I was standing by a bench in the town today, fiddling for something in my backpack, when I noticed a dog sitting with a human and wagging her tail. She was also looking at me with eyes that were nothing if not imploring. So I looked back at the dog and did the friendly face thing because I’d read somewhere that dogs are good at recognising friendly faces. The tail wagging became more frantic and the eyes more imploring.

I went to the human and said: ‘Excuse me. Your dog keeps telling me that she wants to make friends. Would you mind?’

‘Oh, her. She wants to be friends with everybody.’

Now, call me cynical if you like, but I read the subtext as being something like: ‘Don’t think you’re anything special.’

And that’s something else we Brits like to do – prick the balloon of a person’s ego if it appears to be inflating. I took it as indicating assent and made friends with the dog.