Simplicissicanis Nr. 1 - The Doberman Editorial

The editorial of Fräulein Effie - Nr. 1
Clingy? Mon Dieu. It’s Tactical Proximity.

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  Clingy? Mon Dieu. It’s Tactical Proximity.

  The editorial of Fräulein Effie
  as transcribed, reluctantly, by the human.

  ⸻

  I’ve been called “clingy.”

  Not to my face, of course. People that I prefer not to surround myself with don’t dare to speak to me with a mouth they would not kiss their mother with in broad daylight.
  But I sense things.

  I see the glances exchanged when I move my popotin from one room to another like a prêt-à-porter tank. “She follows her Maman and Papa everywhere,” they whisper, with the kind of concern usually reserved for unpaid electricity bills or poorly aged Instagram captions. As if movement with purpose were pathological. As if loyalty—sharp, elegant, and highly attuned—were some design flaw.

  Let me clarify.

  I do not follow my humans to the Lou because I need to use the bathroom. I follow because they need help. Utterly.

  Let’s not confuse meticulous strategy with codependency. If a working dog designed to assess threat, mood, and moment-to-moment tone follows their humans from la cuisine to the couch, it’s not some glitch in the Doberman matrix. It’s German-bred logistics.

  Even though Papa acts like ‘Le Hot Mess Express’ seconds from derailing, he is the asset. I’m the insurance. Where he goes, I go because if I didn’t, something - quelque chose de terrible might happen. And Maman’d probably ugly cry. Loudly. In poor lighting. Wearing something fleece. No one wants to see such a tragedy.

  And yet, even though it’s more than obvious that they need help to navigate this world, outsiders continually ask to justify this behavior. “Mademoiselle Effie is always underfoot,” the peasants from the valley complain while standing in the driveway of lost hopes and dreams indicated by the Crocs and sweat pants paired with the look of someone who’s forgotten one sock and most of their dignity. I ask: If they didn’t want an excessively beautiful brainiac en chef who is physically capable of reading your cortisol levels in real-time… why would they have gotten a Doberman?

  You see, they wanted German engineering in an extraordinarily très chic form. Well. I am the archetype of German engineering with an unmistakable présence américaine.

  Of course, humans operating at altitude get it. They fervently accept a Doberman elbow—one that feels like two—pressed into their lap, while the nose closes their laptop just as they try to answer emails they’ll never send. They don’t recoil when their Doberman lies across them like emotional infrastructure. They don’t panic when the black shadow appears in the doorway to inspect their business like they own it—because they do.

  These people aren’t threatened by connection.

  They understand the simple truth of proximity: It’s not a symptom. It’s an unmistakable style.

  And yes, we rest our souls on top of you.
  No, this gesture doesn’t violate a boundary.
  We are the boundary.

  If bipeds wanted space—
  They should’ve gotten a cat.