Breeds: Beagle, vizsla-cross and laika-cross
Owner: Michael Borg-Hansen, Danish ambassador to Serbia

­ The Danish ambassador’s Belgrade residence is home to a canine community with a suitably international flavour. Three sets of muddy paw prints mark the staircase leading up to the front door and inside there’s a distinct welcome from each of Michael Borg-Hansen’s dogs.

Ten-month-old Zlatko, a golden-haired hunting dog of Serbian-Hungarian heritage who came free with a case of wine, bounds into the room with enthusiasm. The black-and-white muzzle of Sharik, a three-year-old former street dog, pops up to offer a friendly nibble. Finally, Toby, a 12-year-old beagle, enters with a slightly disdainful shuffle.

“He thinks he went to private school,” says Michael, admitting that Toby is the only one of the dogs who would be allowed to attend a diplomatic dinner. “The big ones would eat the food on the table,” adds his wife Marianne (pictured, far right).

Marianne has driven the Borg-Hansens’ passion for dogs, as they have picked up a pet in each of their past three postings. They were stationed in London and Kiev before moving to Belgrade in 2013. A residence in the British capital that opened onto Battersea Park was ideal for Toby but a posting in Ukraine proved a different kind of canine experience.

Territorial packs of strays roamed the streets of Kiev during the Borg-Hansens’ stay; Marianne says there were as many as 30,000 of them. She became involved in animal-welfare efforts through an organisation called Four Paws, appearing on talkshows to advocate humane treatment of the strays.

Some extremely high-level Ukrainians were receptive, including the current president Petro Poroshenko, who attended a dog-welfare event at the behest of the Borg-Hansens and donated cash to Four Paws. “We did some good there,” says Michael. “Poroshenko still asks after Sharik. It’s a sign of civilisation; you should treat the weakest individuals in society – be they human or animal – as humanely as possible.”

A dog’s life in Belgrade is not to be sniffed at. Zlatko, Sharik and Toby enjoy daily walks in the woodland of the city’s Kosutnjak district or the Usce Park at the confluence of the Danube and Sava. And that provides their owners with a chance to break out of the ambassadorial bubble by meeting ordinary citizens exercising their own animals. “We call it public diplomacy,” says Michael. “We meet lots of people,” adds Marianne, thinking back to Kiev, “but never the oligarchs.”

Breed: Bichon frisé
Owner: Leon Grice, New Zealand’s consul- general to Los Angeles
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Within New Zealand’s foreign ministry, the decision in 2012 to dispatch Leon Grice to serve as the country’s consul-general in Los Angeles required great consideration. Grice, a businessman and former Wellington lobbyist, would be the country’s first-ever political appointee to an overseas diplomatic post. But within the Grice household, the deliberations involving two children – then aged nine and 12 – were more narrowly focused. “The only question we had was, ‘Can we take the dog?’” says Grice.

Milou is a bichon frisé with an orange streak along his back that leads his owner to conclude he likely possesses a bit of shih tzu, too. The eight-year-old dog, named after Tintin’s companion, has accompanied the Grices through Leon’s stints as executive of a software company and director of the New Zealand 2011 office in charge of the Rugby World Cup. But Milou had never travelled abroad, let alone represented his country there. “He’s not as intrepid as Tintin’s dog,” Grice says. Since crossing the Pacific three years ago, Milou’s greatest adventures have taken place within the bounds of the consul’s residence in the Brentwood hills.

There are approximately 22,000 New Zealanders in southern California but the consular duties are slight: expediting business visas for Hollywood types seeking to take advantage of New Zealand’s burgeoning film industry and the recurring crisis of “Kiwis losing their passports in Las Vegas”. Instead Grice has been encouraged to approach his job more broadly than his predecessors in Los Angeles. “The government felt we could do more with an economic focus,” he says. “My brief was to bring a different kind of energy to our presence here.”

Grice works on supply-chain issues linking New Zealand wine to the market and in 2013 he used the America’s Cup yacht race in San Francisco to illustrate the country’s prowess in non-agricultural sectors. “Almost every boat was operating with New Zealand hardware and science,” he says. “We were able to showcase New Zealand know-how without having to say ‘We’re smart’.”

Milou is a permanent fixture on national holidays such as Anzac Day and Waitangi Day, when the Grices regularly host up to 300 people at the residence. “He helps build the idea that you’re coming to the New Zealand family home because we’re not much for formality in New Zealand,” Grice says. On those occasions, Milou makes his presence known by begging guests for food.

Although not very diplomatic, his specific enthusiasms do serve as a useful trade-promotion exercise for a country eager to expand its dairy exports to the US. “If someone has cheese,” Grice says, “he’ll stare at them until they relent.”