While furry dogs might look perfect for cuddles on the sofa, boops on the nose and general, meme-able good times, the reality of owning one can be very, very different.
Take Onni, a five-month-old Samoyed from Helsinki, Finland, for example. Known for their brilliant white coats and smiley faces, Samoyeds are basically walking clouds. And as anyone who’s tried to wear an all-white outfit will know, it’s all fun and games when your indoors, but the prospect of heading outside, where the risk of staining your bright whites increases exponentially, is another matter.
Fortunately, we have umbrellas. Onni, however, was not so fortunate, and recently came home from a particularly wet and muddy walk resembling a different dog entirely. The only recognisable part left was his innocent face poking through the mud.
Check it out:
CatersOnni’s owner Lotta Alajoki said:
It was a wet and muddy day and Onni was playing with his sister and one of our breeder’s dogs, wrestling around in the mud.
At first we were worried about how we were going to get him clean but when we kept looking at him all we could do was laugh, he just looked so funny that we had to take a picture.
The cynics of social media, however, weren’t convinced by the perfectly clean face juxtaposed with such a muddy body, and even accused Lotta of faking the photo when she posted it on Instagram.
She added:
So many people think the mud is wiped off or it’s photoshopped but it’s not, he looks like that after every muddy walk or play date.
His face was still white because the hair on his face is shorter so the mud doesn’t stick to it.
CatersFortunately for Lotta, and as other owners will know, Samoyeds aren’t actually too difficult to clean. Thanks to the breed’s double-layer coat, the outer layer of fur keeps the under-layer clean, and the dirt is easy to brush out once it has dried.
If only the same was true for my skinny white jeans and winklepickers.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.