still picture of 300 years ago.
They are lazy to the point of you thinking there is something wrong
with them during the day, then, at night they come alive and after
the 32nd time they woke you up to open the door they make you wish
you had bought that lively pup your neighbour has instead, they
embarace you in front of your friends when they refuse to do all the
tricks you KNOW they can, they bark at the postman and nearly rip
the guts off the gardener, despair settles they when start to think
that no-one should be allowed near you in the park and proceed to
bark in a menacing way to all that get within a 10m distance, after
the second day of not touching their food you rush them to the vet
who diagnoses antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and anti-pyretics
only to see them eat like a pack of hugry wolves before you got a
single pill in their stomachs, their shedding drives you to insanity
when you calculate and recalculate and come to the conclusion that
it is impossible for so much hair to come out of a dog that keeps
it's coat as if nothing had happened;
when you constantly apologise to people because your 30 kilo puppy
has just jumped on them for a fuss you start to wonder what made
you choose this breed, they definetly become annoying when they
make a point of fighting, seemingly to the death, for the right to
shred a cuddly toy right in the middle of your home office where
you are currently engaged in speaking to your one of your most
customers; you are constantly stopped in your daily walk for
someone to ask if your dogs are a cross between a German Shepherd
and a Greyhound, you take them to obedience classes to go through
the humiliation of seeing all the other breeds graduate while you
wait in the sidelines and are reprimanded for 'spoiling' your
dogs, you almost give up after they turn your garden into a warzone,
diligently proceeding to wipe their paws on your bed and sofa,
you eventually begin to wonder if your dogs love you at all and
then you have to go away on some business and the news are
always sad - the girl is not eating, the boy is losing hair;
they rush to the door everyday at 5:30 and they sit there for
hours, waiting for someone who is not going to come...
And when you walk in that door you and wish you had never bought
that porcelain doll for the sideboard, you wonder whether you will
be able to claim the insurance for the floor lamp that now adorns
the carpet and you feel happier than you ever have before because
you are with your babies and they are ecstatic to see you...
I suppose to a shepherd of 300 years ago, most of these things would
either be advantages or go unnoticed, to me, they may sound like
inconveniences but if they really were I would have probably gotten
another breed of dog. If we think about it carefully the Estrela is
a perfectly adapted dog to a life we no longer lead. It may seem to
have no place in the vast majority of houses but then again do we
really want it to be in the vast majority of houses?
Surgeon General's warning: Estrelas can be highly addictive, check
with your GP before you purchase and most importantly with your Bank
Manager.
Written by : Jorge Silva, proud owner of a Estrela
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