South America is indeed a dog lover’s paradise! People love their dogs. Unlike in Asia and Europe, where the stray dogs will break your heart, most of the stray dogs in Latin America look strong and happy. Someone is feeding them and in some cases they even looked loved. This meant that a dog-less dog-lover like myself could ooh and awe at the puppies without my heart breaking.
Here are some of my fave (mostly stray) dogs I’ve encountered over the past 7 months:
The way you are describing the street dog situation is not accurate, at least not in Santiago. Just returned from Santiago and saw many sad and unhealthy looking dogs. Life is tough on the street and they follow you around and seem sad. Even worse is that cars hit these dogs! Our driver hit one and the sounds it made were excruciating. The driver didn’t even care – told us it meant nothing and wouldn’t even stop to check to see if it was dead. Free roaming dogs and traffic don’t mix and the some people’s attitudes there are awful. What we need is to improve the situation not say it is fine.
Great topic. I love dogs and I too was impressed with the strays in South America. None of them ever bothered me and as you say most of them are healthy. I stayed with a family when in Quito and they had a mastif which look at you face to face if they go up on their back legs!
I’ve always been more of a cat person (don’t judge me), because we only had cat growing up and my neighbor had big dogs that scared me when I was a child. But that bulldog in the first picture is adorable! I’ve come to enjoy dogs alot more since being in my 20s and, although I still don’t think I’ll be a dog owner anytime soon, I have come to actually like and enjoy being around dogs.
Dog photos always cheer me up, though other countries aren’t so kind and welcoming to them. Did you notice any odd behavior locals had interacting with the strays?
As always, a big fan of the pup posts. Julia & I actually just “met” the coolest mom & pup combo last night here in Melaka. We liked them so much we may sneak them a piece of chicken from our local Indian restaurant over the weekend.