Everybody has an annoying neighbor...

This is a dik-dik, the world's smallest antelope.

And as you can see, some people (the ones easily impressed by appearances) might think they're the cutest animals on Earth.  The enormous eyes, slender neck, lean body, and long legs make dik-diks the supermodels of the tiny ungulate world.

And boy, don't the dik-diks know it.

It's not that they're ill-willed or anything.  But when a dik-dik isn't grooming their fur, shining their trotters, or simply practicing their butt-wiggle (which often gets them surprisingly far in life), you can usually find them plunked down at the nearest body of water, simply gazing emptily at their own reflection so intently they might not even notice you said hello.

Which, in truth, you might realize is often a waste of time.  And you'll still probably say hello anyway.

Pudus don't dislike dik-diks, exactly.  Not at all.  The truth is, if you get to know one, they really do mean well.  They want to be liked is all, and if they notice you enough to like you, they sometimes make pretty good friends, even.  It's just that they don't tend to think very deeply about things, and there's a fair chance they'll never have to.  So at parties, you just sort of roll your eyes in amusement when you see a group of dik-diks come in the door, suddenly and effortlessly getting all the attention even though they really have almost nothing original to say.

Pudus usually just go to the backyard and talk about books.

Sometimes, if the slightly-drunk, see-how-much-fun-we're-having laughter gets too loud even to talk through, pudus play rugby to blow off steam.  (Pudu rugby, incidentally, looks mostly like a sort of randomized hugging in packs.  Which is all it really is.  There's also a ball involved, but it's too big for the pudus to carry very far.)

Usually by the end of the night one of the dik-diks has knocked something over and another one is upset about something they won't even remember tomorrow, and one of the pudus volunteers to walk them all back home, swearing quietly that this is the last time.

But everyone knows it isn't.

(Dik-dik photo courtesy of Becci Crowe, a fabulous wildlife artist and world traveler.  Take a second and check out her website, www.becci.com.)