When we were shopping around for a dog, I was of course imagining a nice, big manly dog, like a Labrador or a German Shepherd, or at least a small dog with some hombre characteristics, like a pug or a bulldog.

But when my son saw a parent with Bichon Fris�(c) at sports lessons last summer, he fell in love with the fluffy little puppy.  And once the others in the family were on board, no amount of coaxing or cajoling was going to bring them back to their senses on the topic of dog breed.

So we bought a Bichon Fris�(c).  My wife said that I should be happy to walk it in public, for it would show that I had a certain confidence in my own manliness.

And then, 23 hours later, I found myself walking the fluffy little puppy on the grass next to a Chevron in Tracy, California (the middle of central valley farm country), purple leash in hand, waiting for him to sniff out a spot to ... well ... tinkle.

Precisely at that moment, two good ol’ boys squealed around the corner in a time-worn red Ford pickup truck, the passenger hanging most of his upper body out of the window, yelling “yeeeee haaaaaw” at me.  Sigh.

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