lzh seems to have acquired an admirer. There’s a wee puppy that lives around here- I’ve seen him several times before, and I think he’s kinda cute, although lzh doesn’t agree- who today decided he’s going to follow lzh everywhere. She went out to the market at lunchtime, and when she got back she called me downstairs to help her get inside without her puppy admirer following- she had a basked full of groceries on her bike to get through a less-than-friendly security door, so I had to hold the door open and stand guard while she pushed her bike through. As soon as the door closed, the puppy wandered up to see where lzh had disappeared to. I told lzh, no worries, he’ll get bored and head back to wherever he came from soon enough. Then about half past three I went out for beer and saw no sign of this puppy. lzh just went out to look for stuff that the shadow building will charge far too much for, but as soon as she got outside, this puppy showed up again and was still intent on following her. So I was called downstairs to…… do what, I don’t know. Anyway, another neighbourhood dog arrived, and the two dogs started chasing each other around, so lzh had a chance to escape.
lzh is a dog lover, and the only dogs I’ve ever seen her scared of were the large dogs at the Tongzhou dog market the one day we visited- alsations, Tibetan mastiffs and St Bernard’s cooped up in cages and unhappy at the intrusion of others into their space. But somehow this puppy following her around today has really freaked her out. Fair enough, it is very strange behaviour on the puppy’s part, and not knowing this puppy’s origin or owner or state of health, we have no idea how safe he might be. There are some quite nasty diseases carried by dogs in China, and it doesn’t pay to get too friendly with a dog you don’t know.
Well, I don’t think there’s too much to worry about in this particular puppy admirer of lzh. So long as he stays outside the building, fine. Don’t think we’ll do anything to encourage him to hang around, either. No feeding him. But if he does hang around, I’m going to name him Pup-pup. Why? The answer can be found in one of my favourite films.
lzh just got back. Pup-pup was waiting for her. This is really freaking her out.
Are you sure it’s not a homing pigeon? Pollution can have some unpleasant effects on genetics.
No, and anyway, it seems it got bored and went away sometime last night. It wasn’t there this morning.