We lived in La Grave in France for a while, my French is decent. Steve knew German, so pronounced any French he tried to speak like you would pronounce it in German & then one night he was doing a bad Inspector Clouseau voice & I was like “JUST DO THAT! Do that!” and it worked.

People responded SO MUCH BETTER to his completely hilarious Pink Panther imitation to his disturbing German-French combo. Also the only French he got really fluent at was comprehending and answering questions about our dog, because the French fuckin love dogs.

So he got great at “he is ten years old/yes, he loves to swim in the Romanche/your dog, as well, is very dignified and beautiful.”

One day we were having lunch at a restaurant and we brought the dog in bc you can take a dog anywhere, you can take a dog into an operating room, and a few minutes later this very angry looking chief strides over and is like “VOTRE CHIEN” and we’re all “oh god we’re so sorry.”

And then he said (in French) “we didn’t sell enough of the seared duck breast, here” and put a TIN BUCKET filled with seared duck breast in front of the dog who KNOWS we will not let him keep it so he shoved his entire head into the bucket to get as much as possible.

That dog never got over not living in France anymore. We would take him to Blockbuster once we got back just to cheer him up bc they let dogs into this one Blockbuster in Hoboken but he was just a little sad forever. The cat was neutral.

He did love to swim in the Romanche.

Denali was maybe the only dog I have ever met who was smart enough to have ennui about being a dog and being trapped by the limitations of that life. And once he knew that in France he could be more than just a dog, he could be a FRENCH dog, well...

Also it was only a 2 euro surcharge to take him up the telepherique to the top of the mountain! Substantially less than they charge people with filthy, non-dog babies.