Here's something that happens at least once a week now that the weather's nice and we're out more.
I meet someone new. On a walk, at a cafe, on the street. They see Sami. They light up. They crouch down. They ask: "What's his name?"
"Sami."
"Sami! Hi Sami! Oh, you're beautiful. Sami, look at you."
Then they stand up, smile at me, and walk away.
They didn't ask my name. They never ask my name. I am a delivery mechanism for the small white dog. I am the leash-holder, the background character, the unnamed extra in a scene that is entirely about Sami.
When we were traveling - we've done a lot of Europe with him - people would stop us on the street. They'd ask to take a photo. Of him. Sometimes they'd want to be in the photo with him. I have been cropped out of more photos than I can count. Just a floating arm holding a leash at the edge of the frame.
I once sat at a restaurant where a bird on a nearby table kept Sami completely fixated for twenty minutes. He forgot about food. A terrier forgot about food. The people at the next table were watching him, laughing, pointing, completely delighted. Not one of them looked at me. I was eating pasta alone in plain sight and nobody cared.
I'm not complaining. I'm reporting.
This is what dog parenthood is. You are the infrastructure. You are the one who carries the treats, schedules the vet appointments, and learns Portuguese commands because your dog was trained in Portugal and that's just the language he responds to. You do all of this, and then a stranger on the street looks past you and says "oh my GOD, look at that DOG."
And the thing is - you get it. You do the same thing to other people's dogs. You've walked past a hundred humans without noticing them, then stopped dead because a golden retriever looked at you from across the street.
We're all invisible to each other. The dogs are the main characters.
I've made my peace with it. My name is Bobby. Nobody's asking.
Bobby (and Sami, who is very famous)