this dog that changed my life

“She is absolutely adorable, incredible, beautiful, objectively perfect. Okay, maybe it's not the crispiest chip in the pack but in my eyes it's HPI.” To listen to Mylène Bertaux, 39, you might think she is talking to us about her daughter. Make no mistake, she praises her “girl”: Toutoute, a 2 and a half year old French bulldog. This “10.5kg ball of love” revolutionized her life and even inspired a biting investigation, which she has just published with Fayard: Toutoute – The new place of dogs in our lives (1).

In 2020, the world is on pause. The culprit? Covid-19 which is plunging the planet into an unprecedented health crisis. In France, there is paralysis and several confinements are decreed. Mylène Bertaux, a journalist in Paris, experienced a turning point at the same time. “I found myself alone in my attic apartment. Very cute, but also very small. And there, like everyone else, loneliness weighed me down.” The ordeal is all the more complicated since the thirty-year-old broke up some time earlier and since then, she has no longer been around her ex-partner's little staffie. “During the separation, I missed this dog a lot. It’s the first time I felt the lack of a non-human.”

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After ecstasy, the “puppy blues”

In addition to this canine breakup, a crush on another dog – Pep's, the mascot of the influencer agency Follow met during a professional meeting – was enough to spark the idea in the journalist's mind that She too could adopt a little ball of fur. “At the time, I was a little unstable and when I saw this bulldog, I had a revelation: I said to myself that these influencers seemed happy. From that moment on, I will start scrolling Instagram where the little dog represented for me the perfect life, social success, happiness.

Mylène Bertaux finally finds love again and convinces her new partner to adopt a puppy. She sets her sights on a little French bulldog, as cute as her. After a train ride to Sin-le-Noble, near Valenciennes, Toutoute's adoption was finalized. The journalist still remembers their first moments: “Clearly, there is a before and an after Toutoute. At the farm, when they put it on my heart for the first time, something chemical happens. I see rainbows, I lose my temper because I feel so overwhelmed with love.” This ecstasy lasts a week. “All my attention is focused on this beast. I buy her small mattress pads, toys, kibble…. And above all, I'm very afraid that someone will steal her.”

Little by little, life begins to fall into place but Mylène suddenly feels overwhelmed by the mountain of responsibilities. “I realize that a dog has to be taken out a lot. And then she gets bigger. The load seems enormous and crushes me. And I start to get depressed.” This phenomenon has a name: “puppy blues”. Researchers at the University of Helsinki recently highlighted this in a study of 2,000 dog “parents”. Some 10% of them experienced anxiety, frustration and exhaustion after adoption. Based on this observation, companies today praise the benefits of “pet at work”: less stress, better communication between teams and quite simply more well-being at work.

A new sociability

After the first months of anxiety, Mylène Bertaux must overcome “Toutoute's adolescence”, keep calm in the face of chewed shoes and chewed electric cables. And there, the first arguments occur with his companion. The cause: poor distribution of tasks (visits to the veterinarian, walks, purchasing kibbles, etc.). “I tell myself that if it is already complicated with a dog, it will be even more complicated with a child. In reality, Toutoute exacerbated our pre-existing relationship problems.” Mylène will end up separating, a few months later, from Toutoute's “dogdad”.

And it's not just in her romantic relationships that the little bulldog transforms her mistress's life. “He's not a child, but he's not a green plant either. She reconciled me with a form of sociability.” Daily walks at the dog park opened up new horizons: meetings, light chats with other dog owners, and a new routine. “During the Covid period, I was really struck by loneliness. Toutoute took me out of that bubble and somehow saved me. She put me back into a more grounded daily life, with the simple pleasure of staying at home to cuddle her, without feeling guilty.”

Turning point in career

Inspired by Toutoute, Mylène even took a professional turn: going on a “tour” of the world (a trip to explore the most “canine” destinations on the planet) and writing a book about it. “From a personal point of view, this trip allowed me to reconnect with a part of myself that I had wanted to bury. When I was younger, I lived for several years in Mexico. Thanks to Toutoute, I returned to the traces of my past.” For four months, the “all-terrain” journalist wandered between several destinations: Bangalore, Seoul, Los Angeles, New York, Mexico and even Chihuahua. There, she sets off to attack the most bohemian neighborhoods dog friendlywhere you drink your matcha latte while the dogs lap up their “puppuccino” (whipped cream drink). In the heart of the South Korean capital, she meets Kylie and her poodle Angjoo. “When I met her, Kylie had just closed the family import-export business and left a somewhat boring job. Since then, she has become a dog groomer and it’s thanks to her little dog.”

During her trip to California, the French journalist contacted Ellen, behind the very popular Instagram account of the bulldog and “petfluencer” Marvel – he now has 383,000 followers. In this case, the star dog was a lifeline for his mother, a Ukrainian living in Los Angeles. “When the war in Ukraine broke out, Ellen was already in the United States. His parents were still there and lived in a very dangerous area. By the time they fled, Ellen was panicked and felt helpless. To occupy her mind, she then had the idea of ​​creating videos with her dog. Two years and 500 publications later, success has been achieved. The proof: even Lady Gaga left a comment for Marvel, saying how “iconic” he is. As for Ellen's parents, they benefited from a program to be refugees in the United States, and today live thanks to the income earned from the content of the little bulldog and his mistress.

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Desire for motherhood

When Mylène Bertaux is asked if she is preparing for the death of Toutoute, she dodges: “No, she will never die!” The journalist goes on to say that she is obviously aware that her little dog “won’t be forever”. Especially since she accumulates health problems. For this reason, the thirty-year-old decided to take advantage of it, preferring evenings curled up under the blanket smooching Toutoute than pints of beer on the terraces. Is this enough to satisfy her desire for motherhood? “To tell the truth, I don’t know if I’m dreaming of a second dog or a child. Toutoute did not replace my desire for motherhood but it still soothed a lack.” In the meantime, the name tattooed on Mylène Bertaux's left forearm is indeed that of Toutoute.

(1) Everything. The new place of dogs in our livesFayard, 22,90€.