Small White and Fluffy

Americans like things supersized: their people, their incomes, their Big Macs and definitely their dogs. 

In contrast, China has a passion for teeny tiny small dogs- only a few times have I spotted a dog bigger than a handbag on Beijing’s city streets. Not only do Chinese like small dogs, but the whiter and fluffier the better. It is pretty funny and ridiculous to see the urban landscape dotted every so often with a little fuzzball scurrying along at ankle level. 

Furthermore, you see these dogs in the most bizarre places. I spotted a dog with an outrageous hairstyle perched in an old man’s bicycle basket, another pooch roamed a couple’s café table as they sipped coffee, a third balanced precariously on a delivery rickshaw’s front cabbie bench and many others uselessly strain at their leashes while their owners, usually grizzled old men and women, plod slowly up the side walk. 

Certainly these poofy little pups have captured Beijing’s affection.