If you’re allergic to cuteness, just move right along. I prefer to think of it as an study in parasitic evolution.

So anyway, I’m walking around Charlottenburg earlier this week, meeting some friends to go to an exhibit on the history of the Chinese population in Berlin (small exhibit, a few interesting historical notes, displayed “like an 8th grade science fair” as Ben rightly said). I’m hungry, so I stop in a Backerei for a quick belegte Shrippe.

I start to leave, but as I come to the door, three black, panting French bulldogs — squat, almost puglike creatures with bat-ears and bulging eyes —  set themselves expectantly in front of the door outside. I pull it open and step carefully through them; they look up at me impatiently, moving not a centimeter for me.

As I walk away, the proprietress comes out and bends down, talking to them too quietly for me to hear. She hands one of them a little bakery bag. It takes the package carefully in its mouth, and then all three trot off down the street, to meet an owner who is holding an apartment door open for them.

This takes the already very high standards of German canine malleability to an absurd level. No, I don’t have pics, because my camera was out of batteries.  But I’m sure cute overload has some that will do.