Cosmo-politan

When I first introduced Cosmo to our village, he was only five months old, and still had his long soft puppy hair that made him look like a bear cub. The little children who spend their recess in the creek that rambles through our neighborhood park--otherwise known as the dam builders--found him particularly amusing. On arriving from class, while forming up at the bench across from us prior to being discharged into the ravine by their teacher, they frequently sat there together chanting, "poodle, poodle, poodle, poodle."

Over time, Cosmo came to meet all the dispensers of dog treats in town: the shoe repairman, the bank teller, the stationery store clerk, the gift card shop lady, and irregulars in the plaza. Now days--a year and a half later--Cosmo has acquired a near celebrity status due to his silver goatee. Little old ladies stop to converse with him in French, and teenage boys salute him as "the dude."

As the unofficial ambassador of good taste, we are regularly informed by passers by of his distinguished demeanor, as well as his resemblance to his bearded au pair, and are often greeted by girls and young mothers with strollers who assume he must descend from some eminent heritage, and kindly bestow on the two of us the most salubrious of salutations.

To these gracious exchanges, I now simply reply, "Yes, he's very Cosmo-politan."