Berliners and their dogs

Let me introduce you to Bambi, the resident dog on my street and my favourite in all of Berlin. She belongs to the Vietnamese restaurant on Bergmanstrasse and we'd pass each other on the street every time I left the house.

I'd say, "hi Bambi", and give her a little pat on the head and she'd shoot me a really bored Vicky Pollard stylie "whatever" in return. But despite her Little Britain act, she's actually a genius in disguise with a seemingly good understanding of German, English and Vietnamese.

She's quite well known around Berlin's Kreuzberg neighbourhood and some friends of mine were even discussing once if maybe she would help us with our German prepositions and pronouns - I'm sure she'd have been a great help! ;)

Every day she goes to work with her owner in the restaurant and pretty much just sits there looking cute all day (Berliners are more that happy to have dogs in restaurants - and it always make the meal more interesting!) or heads outside by herself to look at the passers by and dig little holes next to the tree outside the restaurant.

Well all this leads me on to say about how much Berliners love their dogs! And they have to be cute and little - anything about knee height. You see them everywhere - in the shops, cafes, restaurants, taking a stroll in the park...

I went to see a Richard Gere film called Hachiko, about a dog whose owner dies and the dog waits for him at the train station every day for the rest of its life. I saw the film in German, and let me tell you, I have never experienced anything quite like it in my entire movie going history!

People around me were wailing, and I mean WAILING right out loud about this dog. They didn't seem to mind at all if anyone thought this was kind of weird. I've never experienced such an outpouring of grief before at the cinema and I really didn't know whether to laugh at the weird situation or cry about this poor little dog.

Anyway, I'd be interested to know what the reaction to that film was around the world - if it was a quintessentially Berliner reaction or a general one that anyone would have watching Hachiko.

In any case, one thing's for sure - Berliners sure do love their dogs!