Siiimba!

One of the drivers in our compound is a tall guy. Not tall-skinny, but tall and broad-shouldered. Still: He’s afraid of Ollie. It’s happened several times that he hops sideways onto the grassy bit when we meet him out on walkies, or that he walks a careful curve around the doglet. He does realise that this is a little comical: whilst the doglet is technically a dog and therefore fearsome, he is also the size of a malnourished housecat.

He has taken to calling Ollie ‘simba’, lion – maybe because of his fluffy chest? ‘Siiimba siiimba!’ he almost singsongs when we walk past.

And Ollie is indeed fearsome when he has a go at the German shepherd guard dog who comes to our compound at night (always safely on a leash, and Charlie the guard dog mostly has a look of concern on his lovely face): bark-yelling furiously, shaking his head and spitting with rage, and all back fur up like a row of dragon spikes. Demon doglet. He also wags his tail, but nobody at the gate really understands dog behavior well enough to pick up on this confusion.