On any given day, Dagny and I go on about three walks and almost always, she finds something to be proud of. She’ll scrounge around for pieces of bread that were left by neighbors for the birds, other times we’ve encountered a lost dog and sometimes she’ll find a dead worm to roll in. And the common thread here is that I know what all of those things are. They’re normal. But the other night, Dagny found something on our walk that freaked me out at first and then I realized what she had found was alive. It looked familiar yet I had never seen one….
Read on!
Hedgehogs in France
Aside from Sega’s Sonic, I can’t say I’m too familiar with hedgehogs. Definitely not the real-life variety. I’d heard of them but I had never seen one just strolling across my backyard in suburban New Jersey. They’re like porcupines with quills, I’d imagined, but never gave them much thought. So the other night, Dagny sniffed out this funny looking, spiky ball of a thing that I would have otherwise ignored. It looked like a plant near the other bushes and since it was dark out I just walked on past it. But leave it to Dagny to investigate.
(not my pic, but this is what he looked like more or less)
But then this “plant” moved as it felt a wet nose sniffing around its head. So you can imagine my surprise when it started walking and I saw a face! I had no clue what it was and jumped about a meter back before I ran away… just to have Tom laugh at me upon returning home. He came out and assured me it was just a harmless little hedgehog. Hedgehogs in France are actually quite common (like squirrels are for us in many parts of the U.S.) although the hedgehog variety here does not exist in North or South America. I found out they rival Dagny for a top speed of 3 meters/minute (my dog sniffs a LOT on walks, doesn’t want to move too fast and miss, say, a hedgehog).
So that’s my “I feel like a moron” story of the day. At least I now know what a hedgehog looks like.
Hedgehog photo credit: David Reece / Foter / Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
ooo! How funny! I think I would have acted the exact same way. hahaha
They’re freaky looking and the quills get stuck in the dog’s face (I googled pics) if they try to bite the hedgehog. Yikes, kept Dagny away
Hilarious !
Glad you got some amusement out of the story haha
Just discovered your blog and I’ve been reading all morning. Its terrific! I have not lived in France but I worked for a French bank for 10 years (Credit Agricole) in the U.S. So I “get” a fair amount of what you are blogging. Love France and the French (most of the time!)
Awesome — happy to have you here! What did you think of the French work culture? Even though you said you’ve never lived in France, you probably had to interact with French colleagues often. Would love to get your take on that. A friend just visited Paris for work (pharmaceutical) and she was pretty shocked by how things went down. VERY formal in her opinion and VERY serious. Thanks for checking out my site 😉
I suppose very formal and very serious until you got to know them. And the formality was situation specific such as in “meetings”. And each person was different. But for the general difference between French and American colleagues ….we Americans used this to illustrate the difference: An American will say “I know how it works in theory but tell me: how does it work in practice” and the French would say “I know how it works in practice …but tell me, what is the theory?” An exaggeration to be sure but more than a grain of truth in it!
I also learned it was important to synthesize or summarize a concept into logical “tableau de bord” if at all possible!
I do think that once you invite a French person into your home or vice versa it is very different – out goes much of the formality. Most Americans don’t realize the French have such a terrific and sometimes silly sense of humor. And I think they are much more family oriented, in a certain sense, than we are. I remember overhearing a French 19 year old intern in the US talking on the phone once to, I assumed, a close friend (simply from the tone and expressions). It turned out he was talking to his mother or father. I’ll close by saying again how much I enjoy your blog. Keep up the good work. Merci!
Hedgehogs are lovely and I am so glad you and Dagny have met one for the first time, even if it did send you running and confused Dagny!
Thank you for adding this tale of new found animals to #AnimalTales
It really surprised me! I guess I knew of the creature but since I had never seen one (and it was dark), I was really taken aback. But now I know in case we ever see another. 😉 Thanks again for hosting!
The Mother says – oooh how funny, especially if you aren’t familiar with Hedgehogs. Dagny is such a dude 🙂 #animaltales
Hahah, yes she’s very curious and doesn’t mind sticking her nose in weird places, like hedgehogs! Or dirty mud. But despite her boy tendencies (she humps me!), if the ground is wet after it rains, even if it’s sunny, I really have to pull her to get her walking. She hates wet paws!! hahaha, thanks for reading