On her first trip as chancellor to the Kremlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave her a plush toy dog as a gift after learning she was attacked by a dog in the mid-'90s.
At their next meeting, he asked for his black dog, Kony, to be brought into the room. Putin allowed the dog to run around while he sat with his legs widely stretched and a grin on his face. Merkel kept a poker face in front of Putin and later described his behavior as "weakness."
"He's afraid of his own weakness. Russia has nothing, no successful politics or economy. All they have is this," she reportedly told a group of reporters. Ironically, Putin's aggressive actions in Ukraine corroborate this point.
Source: The Guardian, Bild.de, and The New Yorker