„I was afraid they would turn him into a sweet dog. He still looks exactly as offended as ever.”

Pip is a wire-haired dachshund with a beard, eyebrows and an expression somewhere between suspicion and disappointment. Karin sent in his photograph with the express note that he was on no account to come back nicer than he is.

That worked. The portrait hangs low in the hallway, beside the coat rack — the only wall still free — and visitors, Karin says, stop in front of it to check whether the dog really looks like that. He does.