Marie Schneier & Rufus
ph. Jonathan LLense
Marie is a communications manager in Paris. She was never much of an animal lover. With time, she got familiar with dogs and, due to a twist of fate, she fell very much in love with snoring Rufus.
I never thought that I would have a dog. We were never very into animals in my family. Those kinds of relationships are too primal. We are more about intellectual exchange than petting. And then things happened, and I started looking after my neighbours' dog regularly. An adorable little creature who taught me how to feed a dog, how to walk a dog, and how to snore together while we sleep. Little by little, he made me fall in love with him.
The last time I took care of him was during Fashion Week in September. It was a bit of a heated moment because I had to combine the physical and the digital for the first time, and all that. This came with a lot of stress, I was worried about doing it wrong. Then, I noticed that it felt really good to go out with him amid all this agitation, to get away from it all. It's a bit like a bubble: you fly, you hover over everything, you're totally detached, and you let yourself get carried away. It's a bit of happiness.
Sometime later, I heard myself saying to someone in the street "you have a beautiful dog". And then I thought ‘oops, something has happened’. I started asking around and looked at dog breeds, sizes, weights and characters. I kept thinking about a Shar-Pei that I had seen nearby my office. I had seen its owner dragging this big dog along, who obviously didn't want to go out at all.
And so there you have it, I looked at the Shar-Pei character. And I was quite pleased with what I found out. The Shar-Pei's character was quite similar to mine. They are quite protective and very loyal, complete, and independent. They're a bit haughty, but also very sociable, and they love children. That last point was great, because my daughter wanted a dog. She had been talking about it for a while. I started searching and then one day I found a litter that was born on the exact same day as my daughter. So, I thought: if I don’t go now, I will regret it for the rest of my life.
We got Rufus at the beginning of January. So, he is a bit of a lockdown dog. He was a little grey ball with lots of folds. It seemed as if he had this whole skin to live in. We took him home. He settled in with us, and things happened very naturally. One day, something happened that has made it impossible to live without him ever since. Every morning we walk for an hour together, and in the evenings we walk with the three of us. The rest of the time I take him out, as much as possible.
He's indeed a rather lazy dog, so he prefers to stay on the sofa. He chews his bone, he sleeps a lot, and above all, he snores. He snores even louder than a man. It's very funny. We've had him for six months, and he's in his teens. He's extremely well behaved, and he's very clean. He's very sociable and very kind. I love the evenings with him. He warms my feet by lying on them. In the morning, he comes into our rooms to say hello. He has understood that he belongs here with us. Also, he doesn't let us spill anything, he is like a food hoover. He licks feet very, very well. He sniffs your socks very, very well, and he talks. Sometimes he sings too. He makes little noises that tell a lot of things. In other words, it's really a great experience.
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