Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Indo Famous!

It's official. Stanley is an advocate.

It turns out there are causes near to his heart. Causes he is willing to sport his finest (only) bandanna for and get out the bark about. And he is learning that when you really support your passions, people take notice. People take notice when you're 8 inches high and 18 inches long (+ tail) too, but people really like to see passion.

Moving to Indonesia has been a cultural adventure for us all. There are things we must learn to live with (a maddening number of sauce aisles at the grocery store. Is there such thing as too much flavor?!) and to live without (cheese).

Stanley is not immune to this culture shock. The fact that dogs are food in some - albeit small - Indonesian circles is something he can't quite digest. It bothers him. Who could fault him? When your colloquial name is a food (sausage) and you happen to be A DOG, moving to Indonesia is a potentially life-threatening endeavor. It's upsetting!

So when I told Stanley there was something he could do about this people-eating-dog business, he was all ears. I mean, he's already all ears. But, he was really all ears about this.

We got the whole family up on a Saturday morning and packed into the car with snacks and diapers and leashes and water. And then, as we were about to pull out of the drive way, I realized I got the date wrong and so we had to unpack all the snacks and diapers and water and wake up on Sunday and do that part again. But then we finally made it to one of the few parks in Jakarta for a day to celebrate dogs and lend our voices to the DOGS AREN'T FOOD campaign. Because, of course, they're not.

Stanley was in fine form. He trotted around to various stalls trying to be nice to everyone but mostly being an asshole to anyone who got too close to Miles. He's a good big brother like that. When we got to the Change.org stall, he was all business. Whatever they asked him to do (nothing) he did. Whatever they asked me to do (sign a petition and donate money) I did. And then we posed for photos. I thought an onward-facing smiling shot was the best approach. Stanley went for a more forlorn, the harmed-can't-be-unharmed look.

We didn't think much else of that experience. We went home. We felt good about ourselves. Stanley treated himself to the couch and to Miles' toy ball and then to Miles' toy ball on the couch.

Fast forward to last week when my new friend Kristen emailed to ask me if I had at some point participated in a DOGS AREN'T FOOD campaign for which I might have been photographed. She was busy doing research at the magazine conglomerate that she works for and she was pretty certain I was in the magazine she was flipping through. Here, she said. Let' met text you a picture.

And this is what she sent me:


I think it's worth a zoom in:


See. People like to see some passion. Or, they like a dachshund in a dachshund-print bandanna.

Any way you look at it, we're famous in Indonesia!

It's noteworthy that the magazine we are featured in is called Joy.
It's basically the Indonesian Cosmo. 

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