That was a tender tableau as the Sinn Féin leader arrived at Stormont. Out of the car, scarf knotted against the cold, busy politician's folder under arm, pats Osgur the dog. The last political figure in the North to display public affection for a pooch and take it to the office was Peter Mandelson, a comparison you'd think Mr Adams would avoid.
Images matter too much when politics has little substance. Last Friday's hokum at Stormont had a layer of dire seriousness beneath the farce, yet it is the sights that will stick. As a Sinn Féin image, November 2006 vintage, Mr Adams as dog-lover may be as potent as the sight of Ian Paisley clutching his script a bit too tightly, and much more significant than the Michael Stone sideshow.
Many look at or listen to leading republicans in peacetime mode and feel angry or sick. It affronts some of those bereaved by the IRA, or maimed by them, to be presented with images of Mr Adams as writer, Martin McGuinness as fisherman, feted abroad or consulted by foreign visitors as conflict-resolvers. Maybe when republicans do sign up to support Northern Ireland's police - as they have only this week begun to do formally in the South - a share of antipathy will dissolve.
Some will always resent the sense that each ounce of new respectability displaces a ton of blame for the blood and misery of the past. Depict Adams, McGuinness et al as personalities, this thinking goes, or simply enhance their human qualities and you make a pact with Satan.
It is more difficult to judge the status of leading Sinn Féiners now among their own community.
The SDLP's most loyal supporters will never forgive the republican movement for so many deaths, for prolonging the violence, alienating the South and embittering so many unionists. Among republicans, there is fear and resentment about the process that has neutered the IRA, destroyed the arms and set a course towards final recognition of the state by accepting the police. The still-uncertain prospect of sharing power with Dr Paisley has obvious limitations as a pay-off.
Traditionalists hate the Adams-McGuinness team with a vengeance, but even among the faithful they have lost a little lustre. The journey from war to peace has taken too long, and familiarity breeds irreverence. There are people old enough to have set up homes, had children and lost marriages, who don't remember the war because they were young teenagers in 1994 when the IRA called that first cessation of hostilities. Some still like to see Gerry Adams wandering round events in the West Belfast festival in his Aran jumper or bringing his grandchild to watch his son playing football in Casement Park. Simply because he is a grandfather, the greying man patting Osgur the dog may have passed his peak as father of his people. They might not want him to try the regal wave of the octogenarian Dr Paisley: the pose with dog had a touch of off-duty film star.
Still, he looked composed. Compared to "the other side", Sinn Féin's leaders radiate assurance. Last Friday saw Dr Paisley take up three, perhaps four positions inside 24 hours, none of them gracefully. As he read his speech, crunching the paper hard as though warding off the temptation to improvise, it became clear that the text hammered out with Tony Blair's minions had been amended. Some of his MLAs grew fidgety.
Near the end, concentration took its toll. Despite loud prompts from his son and Peter Robinson, the new-fangled, insulting replacement for the RUC eventually came out "ESPI" instead of PSNI. Invoking Martin Luther's "Here I stand" may have been his own idea but dwindled without "I can do no other," which in the circumstances might have brought disbelieving giggles. The angry statement that emerged with 12 signatures included some surprises, like the personable Gregory Campbell and the recently ennobled Lord Morrow. Some wondered at the rebellion of longtime Paisley aide Nigel Dodds.
Others thought it might be a reaction to his poor showing in a recent poll, when he unexpectedly trailed in behind blow-in Jeffrey Donaldson and well behind the leader's son, the latter clearly benefiting from his new prominence during his father's forays into the strange territory of negotiation. As previously-hidden tensions break into the light, the DUP has started to look like an ordinary political party.
Mr Adams has averted major splits and held his movement together on an extraordinary journey. Dr Paisley's ability to do the same is now being put to the test. His performance will decide the course of the next phase of the peace process. He long ago went beyond playing grandfather to assume the role of patriarch.
He has discovered, however, that some important supporters are not as Paisleyite as they once were - but then nor is he.