DOLOMITI, 2025

WHEN LIFE HANDS YOU A PUPPY, COMPLAIN!

Mr. Watson's Canine Views on Family Expansion, Vets, Subs, and Doms (Not Necessarily in That Order)

The world looks different from down below—bigger, more unpredictable.

Mr. Watson once ruled his home, his perfectly calibrated domain, where every sofa cushion bore the imprint of his hard-earned naps. Then came a tiny, wobbly creature. Everyone coos. Everyone fawns. He stares up, bewildered, as she chews his ear with reckless abandon.

A dog's-eye view of treason. Here we go.

Betrayal. Pure and simple. Disruption at its worst.

My well-organized canine life has been uprooted. On account of my human family. Can you imagine? I give them my unconditional love, loyalty, and attention, and what do I get back?

A sister!

She's called Patek. Funny name, I know. But that's what you can expect from a funny family. I'm probably the most serious of them all. Patek, like the fancy watch brand. Sounds male, really. Still, I swear, she's my sister. My nose can detect the gender of any living being from a mile's distance with the exception of a hermaphrodite sea bass.

The vet's nose isn't as good as mine. Her eyes neither. She must have had a bad hair day when she looked at the newborn pup and mistook what remained of the umbilical cord for a penis. Shit happens. Small penises too. Probably more to vets than ordinary people—I'm not talking about penises here—that's why they wear plastic gloves all the way up to their shoulders.

Traditional farms and small workshops near Dobbiaco.

I may have spots that look like theirs, but—holy Pooch—am I glad not to be a cow pushed into the corner of a stable when the vet walks in wearing one of these.

Now, back to my sister, Patek. She belongs to Ellada and Henri-Jérôme. Henri is the son of my human parents, R and H, and Ellada is his partner. Yes, I know—she is named after a country. But so is my friend India. She's a Golden Retriever, and the country she's named after is way bigger.

Anyway, they were promised a male pup the day the vet got willy-nilly on the litter but found themselves holding puppy ovaries and a uterus when they picked her up seven weeks later. By then, the damage had been done. Even before she was able to open her puppy eyes, they were already passionately in love with her. Dog power from day one. They forgave the vet, checked 'X' for gender in her passport just in case she'd turn out to be a sea bass in the end, and brought her into my home.

I guess diversity and inclusion run in the family.

I learn by doing stupid things. Henri, like most young humans, learns from YouTube—usually while stretched out on his bed. He must have been watching some self-proclaimed dog specialist confidently explaining that it's better for dogs to meet on neutral terrain for the first time, and reminding viewers to subscribe. He's taking things very seriously with Patek. I guess she's just a dry run for the real stuff: babies. Plenty of self-proclaimed specialists on that front. I hope he doesn't introduce me to his future offspring in the same dreary parking lot with yellow plastic speed bumps.

I deserve better.

I caught Patek’s scent the second we arrived. I’ve been through enough disasters to recognize the smell of trouble. Three pounds of awkward tottering, colored like a Friesian heifer—minus the udder. I guess my natural father's sperm must have hit the skids after I was born. There's no doubt I came from his last good batch.

The first thing she did was bite my cheeks. I know they're pretty, but that's no reason to chomp on them. With four humans watching her with varying degrees of mushiness, accompanied by vocal utterances that sounded like mixing a mating call of a humpback whale with the rumble of a voracious elephant calf, I had to tone down my reactions. One of my reputable growls would have done the trick, but I decided to practice my rather scarce didactic dog skills: I gave her no attention, backed off, got on my hind legs scratching H's thighs, and looked him straight in the eye with the explicit instruction to pick me up and get me away from her.

But trouble didn't disappear.

It now comes to my house. Far too often. It took me six years to make this place my home and to know exactly under which cupboards I need to push my tennis balls for H and R to go flat on their tummies in order to retrieve them and put a damper on my whimpering.

It takes Patek only a few minutes to mess up my cushions, stop me from any daytime napping, and fetch the tennis balls from underneath my favorite sideboard hiding spot. She still bites my cheeks, then licks them while lying on her back with her legs wide open in total submission. Her tiny neck fits snugly in my mouth. I growl ferociously. I squeeze a little. She freezes in my jaws. Then she wriggles free and starts all over again.

Roleplay; maybe she's not that bad after all.

A bit of macho spunk kind of suits me. Play grumpy and tough on her. Strut alongside her like Mick Jagger on steroids in stretch pants. And see the reverence in the eyes of all the neighborhood dogs.

Yes, dominance: I'm into it from here on.

Now, if only I could stop her from grabbing my leash. Hard to maintain my daddy dom when it looks like she’s the one who's walking me.

Locations:

Rifugio Dibona, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy

Ristorante Baita Piè Tofana, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy

Ristorante El Brite de Larieto, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy

Ristorante Alajmo, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy

Moncler, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy

Dior @ Franz Kraler, Cortina d’Ampezzo & Dobiacco, Italy

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