If you have four husky puppies that you need to take for a walk, you'll never actually walk.
It's something about the number four, and something about huskies.
One puppy is cute.
Two puppies: sweet.
Having three puppies endears the walker to me and makes the walker cute.
Four puppies is clearly a surplus, which holds with it the promise--or, even more enticing, the possibility--of sharing. While it's plausible for one young woman to have two, maybe, if we're generous, even three puppies to keep for herself, the idea of keeping four puppies is preposterous. It's too many to take care of, and inconceivable that one person could glut herself on so much cuteness. Thus, walking four puppies translates as a clear plea for help, a cry to the sensibilities of pedestrians: save me from a purgatory of down-like fur, blue eyes, and floppy wet tongues. Come, pet my puppies, and maybe one will choose you, as the wand chooses its wizard. This makes me imagine an entire shop filled with puppies all waiting to choose a human, which is just so cute that I want to grab one of the four in front of me and run away, squeezing it to my chest while talking to it in a voice I didn't know I had until I saw the cutest thing I'd ever seen in your life.
The husky. Its wolflike appearance, reduced to an innocuous adorability, is reassuring. Puppydom puts these qualities under a microscope. I feel safe because of its size, and even more, its association with a more virile beast, but its carefree smile tells me "yeah, I look like I could grow into something capable of gutting you, but my worldview is so desperately simple that all I want to do is smile, pant, and taste the slight saltiness of your skin oils."
I saw this young woman twice within two days, and each time she tried to walk her puppies, crowds followed. The puppies loved it. She told each crowd that one puppy would cost 700 dollars. The puppies smiled and pranced. If I'd had the cash in my pocket I have no doubt I would've made the most impulsive buy of my life.
