Breed Profiles

My neighbor thought I'd bought a powdered donut with legs. That's the Volpino Italiano for you. The first time I carried Biscotto out of the car, three people stopped to ask if he was a puppy forever, and one offered to buy him a sweater. He is nine pounds of fluff with a face that looks like a tiny fox got into the powdered sugar.

I didn't go looking for a Volpino. I went looking for a small dog that wouldn't yap itself hoarse and wouldn't melt if the weather turned cold. A friend in Lombardy sent a photo of her grandmother's dog, a little white spitfire that herded the chickens and refused to be ignored. That was the Volpino. Ancient, Italian, and almost invisible outside its home country.

People lump them in with Pomeranians. They are not the same dog. The Pomeranian was bred down to be a lap ornament. The Volpino was bred to be a watchdog on a farm, barking at strangers and then hiding behind your ankles. Mine alerts at the mail slot, the squirrel on the fence, and the specific sound the fridge makes when it defrosts. He takes his job seriously.

The coat is the whole event. It's a double coat, dense and straight, and it sheds in clouds twice a year. I brush him outside, always outside, or the vacuum becomes a full-time job. He tolerates the brush if I do it in short bursts and let him bark at the brush between strokes. He has opinions about the brush.

Training was easier than I expected because he is smart and a little stubborn. He learns a command in two tries and then spends the next week deciding whether he feels like it. Positive reinforcement works. Yelling sends him behind the couch, where he barks at you from safety. I learned to keep my voice low and the treats close.

Exercise is modest. A couple of walks and a good game of chase down the hallway covers it. He is fast, faster than he looks, and he turns on a dime. In the park he is convinced he is the size of a wolf. Other dogs seem confused by this, which is fair.

Health has been quiet. The breed is generally sound, but those little mouths can crowd their teeth, so I brush with a fingertip brush and check his gums when he sleeps. His eyes water in the wind, and the vet called it normal for the face shape. I wipe the corners with a warm cloth and move on.

He does not like being alone. Left for a full workday, he rearranges the cushions and sings about it. A frozen Kong and a radio on low helped more than any gadget. He settled once the house had a noise in it that wasn't his own barking.

What surprised me most is how warm he is. Not temperature, though the fluff helps in winter. Warm in temperament. He leans. He follows me room to room. The watchdog part is real, but the companion part is the bigger half, and nobody mentions that enough when they're cooing over the puffball looks.

Traveling with him is its own education. He rides in a small carrier that fits the seat, and he announces every rest stop with the same urgent opinion about the parking lot. Hotels that allow dogs have learned to expect a tiny white sentinel at the window by morning. He adapts faster than I do, which is the part I didn't expect from a dog with such a fixed idea of his own front door.

He is not a dog-park dog, but he is a people dog in the right setting. At the outdoor market he walks heeled and watches the world from behind my knees, and strangers who expect a yippy toy are met with a calm, fox-faced stare. The Volpino was a watchdog first, and the watchfulness reads as confidence once he trusts you. I've stopped explaining him. He explains himself.

Winter suits him better than summer. The coat that sheds in clouds also insulates, and he trots through snow like he invented it. Summer means shorter walks and a fan, because that dense fur turns him into a furnace by noon. I learned his heat limit the year I pushed a long hike and carried him back the last quarter mile, his dignity intact, his opinion of me temporarily lowered.

Visitors still do a double take when he trots in, and the children in the family have decided he is a stuffed animal that breathes. He tolerates their awe with the patience of a dog who knows he's the prettiest thing in the room, and he leans into the attention just enough to be polite before retreating to his favorite sunny tile. The powdered-donut rumor persists, and I've stopped correcting it.

He learned the vacuum is not a threat the day I let him sniff it while it was off, then ran it a foot away with treats raining down. Now he follows the vacuum like a supervisor, certain he's in charge of it. Small wins with this breed count as trust, and trust with a dog this suspicious by nature is the real prize beneath the fluff.

If you want a calm, cuddly ornament, this is the wrong dog. If you want a small, sharp, loyal little guard with a fox face and a big opinion, the Volpino Italiano will hand you your heart in a nine-pound package and then bark at the doorbell you didn't hear.