It's Pronounced 'Veeshluh'

If you’re in New York and want people to just walk right up to you and constantly interrupt your dinner and talk to you and give you lots of attention short of asking for an autograph, simply bring a dog along. But you don’t want to bring just any dog, you want the Ferrari of dogs. You want people to stop in their tracks, crane their necks and yell, “What is that, a Vizsla?”

I am referring to what must be THE dog to have right now and DennisTheVizsla knows what I’m talking about.

I’m having dinner with a friend on the Upper East Side the other night (Spigolo at 81st and 2nd, if you must know) and I SWEAR TO GOD! Every 15 minutes. Passersby would crawl up to our table --  New York strangers, mind you -- and coo and cuddle and pet. The dog, that is.

“Is that a Viszla?”, they’d ask in wonder as if they’d never seen one before.

OK, maybe I’m not being fair. Come to think of it, I guess I’ve never seen one in real life before either, and maybe I’m bemused because I am childless and petless, so I have no justifiable reason to ever talk to strangers, but I’ll complain until I’m blue in the face about how nobody talks to each other any more. How we’ve lost our sense of community. How if I even try to engage in conversation with a stranger then he or she will utter more than a terse grunt only if he or she is crazy, because only wacko, desperate and deranged people talk to strangers. Which means plenty of people think I’m crazy. But dogs give lonely people an awesome excuse to talk to each other.

Perhaps DennisTheVizsla can bark in on this topic as to whether it’s the breed or the whole dog species that promotes such congeniality among otherwise hostile people. Or maybe all you other dog owners out there know about this odd behavior. Is there some sort of caste system? Like if you have a mutt and try to talk to someone with a dolled up poodle, will the poodle owner snub you? Do good-looking dog owners get approached more often? Do certain breeds increase your chances for conversation?

Anyway may I introduce the lovely and talented 7-month-old Tawny with whom I had a very interrupted dinner?

Hey, did you know that Clifford the Big Red Dog was a Viszla?

Me neither!