My Friend “Shari”

My little friend received the name “Sharif” in honours of the famous actor “Omar Sharif”. “Shari” was thus an abbreviation of the name, which resulted some time later. From the beginning it was clear for “Shari”, that he was my dog, and this he showed and let the other family members feel undoubtedly.

Our Sloughi participated totally on our family life for thirteen years. He walked with us in the Park of Versailles, bathed in the Atlantic water and learned “mountain climbing” ...

If Shari wanted to intersperse something with his humans, then he understood it excellently to reach his will and was inexorable. If e.g. the last evening walk lined up, Shari sat down in full size before the picture of the television set. If this reference was not understood immediately about us, Shari tried to hypnotize us with his penetrating views, so then our peace was finished finally. He was a dog personality, that inserted himself independently and sovereign into our family and moved in it. He knew his ranking place within the family. I stood according to his opinion at the point of the family hierarchy. He wanted to please me and therefore he also helped with the housework from time to time ...

It was remarkable that Shari had a “certain sense” for death and misfortune. He felt before an earthquake took place with a surprising violence in the Cologne-Bonn area. Also when my father died one week before, he began to tear up newspapers and howled incessantly like a wolf at night. Still another one week after the death of my father, I could determine a changed behaviour at him. That was directly scary.

With Shari our two sons grew up. He was always an affectionate, in addition watchful babysitter to them (see also “Children and Dogs”).