I Don’t Get These Dog People

I was once picking out some craft supplies in a store. Nearby stood a lady with a little dog. The lady dropped a glove. The dog pounced on it like Mike Tyson on his opponents. The lady seemed oblivious. The little dog, with all its terrier might, was jumping around and tugging at the glove. I thought any moment both the glove and the dog would scatter among the crafting goods.

“Vabandage, teie kindad..”, I said in my poor Estonian, pointing towards the dog. The dog’s owner slowly bent down and started to calmly, and with great patience, talk to the dog. I tried to catch familiar words. What on earth was she telling it? Was she narrating “Sipsik” to it? Or reciting the “Dog’s Code of Honor”? I’d picked out three buttons already, yet the lady kept chatting with the dog. I was moving towards the beads, and she was still squatting, conversing with the dog.

“In Russia, that very dog would have gotten a slap, and with that glove, oh, the dog would’ve really got it,” my mom couldn’t help commenting when I told her about the Lady with the Dog.

Still, I don’t get these dog people. I mean, I literally don’t understand them.