h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So, I'm writing away up in the office on the first floor here, and I hear noises outside.

Cooing noises. 'Kitchy-kitchy-coo' noises. Noises indicative of, 'Aw, aren't you precious?' And they're going on and on...

So I peek out the window, stealthily, and look down on the scene below.

Yep. As I suspected, Elektra is walking Doglet. But they haven't got very far. A college student (female) was passing by.

The college student was the source of the ecstatic noises.

Doglet was being cute, and pawing her jeans. Doglet knows what she's doing. She's illegally cute, and she knows how to work it. The cocked-head number will slay them in the aisles, every time.

This goes on every time the sun comes out. The neighbours like Doglet, and she likes them.

For a brief moment I thought you were going to say Elektra was making the "coochy-coochy-aren't-you-cutie" noises to the college student!

True, though. Dogs have mad levels of cuteness. I think that's why our ancestors let theirs come so close to their fires without eating them. On top of which we've bred them for extra cuteness for centuries.

Or in a bulldog's case, bred them for *something*, anyway, if not cuteness.

I know. They're all cute in one way or another. Even Petey, the smelly dog over at the Hoggett Farm.

People we meet on walks tend to say 'what a beautiful dog' to ours. And he understands it, almost every time he makes some 'wowow' noise to their direction. Some are scared of that because they misinterpret this noise as growling.

Interestingly turkish women and children are often afraid of him because they think he looks like a wolf.

Aw. He sounds like a dear.

Yeah - people who've lived in wolf country would probably be more nervous of dogs that actually look like real dogs. (As opposed to small, furry jokes on four legs.)

The difference between dogs is indeed quite amazing. I'm told no other animal comes in so many variations. I certainly can't think of any

Me, neither. Cats are mostly just cats. Even if you clone 'em, you can't control 'em. They'll come out a different colour.

Size differences alone are flabbergastingly enormous. From chihuahua to the great dane. Who would feel comfortable with a cat the size of a great dane? I certainly wouldn't!

True. Even OUR cats aren't that big.

The Eurasian lynx is only a little more than half the size of a great dane. You are not going 'kitchy-kitchy-coo' when you are meeting one of those.

Same goes for your cougars, I'm sure.

Anyway, nice to hear the doglet gives so much joy to you and your surroundings

Yeah. She's much less threatening to strangers than a lynx or cougar.

Relatives were over last night, and derived much amusement from her. She hops from lap to lap.

We expected ours to get the decent size of about knee high. Now we are stuck with this huge thing that hardly fits under the table and has the mind of a donkey.

I can just see this...and your dog is really pretty...

Tav, usually you can tell the size of the dog by the feet of your puppy, if they are going to get to be large usually they have larger feet in proportion to the rest of them. But they do milk it if they are pretty--but it does have the advantage of when you are really angry at them you can't bring yourself to do anything awful to them.

I have the impression he still has large paws. Maybe that's an advantage for running on snow? He also has 'spikes' for extra grip.

There's a young lady in my city who walks an impressive cross between Siberian Husky and Alaskan Malamute. His paws are extraordinarily big so you might be onto something, there Tav

Could well be true! Greater surface area, less sinking - like wearing snow shoes!