April 18 – P – Perros (dogs)

April’s A to Z Blogging Challenge

Perros is the Spanish word for dogs.  This topic is an ever-fascinating one for us because the world of the pooches is ever so different here.  This is a land where feral dogs prevail.  No matter where you walk in Santa Fe, you’ll come across dogs who just run wild.  Some have homes and are just running about the town, and they may or may not return home tonight.  But many just run free and no one bats an eye about it.

One of the small daily challenges of dogs who run amok is the amount of garbage that gets strewn along the roads and sidewalks since they break open the bags that hang in the garbage holders nightly.  The other irk is the amount of dog poop that litters the walkways – creating land mines to navigate through safely!

However, despite the land-mine annoyance, the kids and I just melt wanting to bring some home, but as my husband says, “why would you torture them?”  It is true, they really do seem content with such freedom, and none that we have encountered are hungry looking – if anything, they’re a bit chunky.  Often we come across little gangs of dogs who hang out together.  It’s a dogs world!

Even though we have mainly seen the mutts content and obviously well-fed, there is the other side of the story of dogs who are  injured or diseased too from such a lifestyle.  As with everything in Argentina – there are paradoxes and paradigms that are difficult to understand.  When there is no humane society, who can you call if you see something concerning?  One day we saw a dog who had an obvious head injury, but there is no one to do anything – it is just the way of life for the feral ones.

This is not to say that pets are not loved and living the life of indoor luxury because there are some with that life too!  But when they live behind the fences and see the prancing freedom of the feral ones, they bark and seem so desperate for a taste of that freedom.

The rest of the post is written by  my nine year old daughter; it is what she wrote in her blog WRITE AWAY TULIA:

THREE FRIENDLY MUTTS

My family and I where strolling on the old broken sidewalk with palm leaves swaying above me in the wind. It was hot, but I was enjoying my time when suddenly a dog with no owner joined us on our walk. Two more came along too. One had long curly fur, another had short thin black fur and the last one had short blond fur, but all were large.   At first I thought they would scratch and bite us, so I felt terrified because they were dirty street dogs.

When a car came by,  they ran after it until the car was far from us and then the dogs came back and surrounded us, one even bit the rim of the tire while the car was moving!  My dad said that all they wanted to do was protect us!  They wanted to join our gang.   Then I realized they were friendly! So they walked alongside us for about eight blocks.  One stopped to cool off and take a bath and drink from the dirty water on the street.  I thought it was gross, and I didn’t think he was getting very clean!  Anyways, they were still cute.  (We should have taken pictures of these moments, but my mom was in shock watching them!)

When we got to the main street, we went  into an art store and after we were done buying paper and markers, the dogs – all three of them – were waiting for us outside!  Then they followed us again.

The bad thing they did was they pee on the road and poo on the grass. P.U! I never want to see that ever again. They also kept chasing all the passing by cars and I was worried they would get run over.  It was so dangerous!

The good things they did was entertain us and protect us.

I enjoyed having animal companions on that summer walk. Especially in February! We named them Larry, Curly, and Moe from TheThree Stooges show.  And I thought the names Lola 1, Lola 2 and Lola 3 were good names too! P.S the dogs were all boys!

Oh how I loved Moe, Larry and Curly.  They filled my heart with joy by just rolling and dancing around! They filled my world with love and faith like cooks filling crumpets with chocolate. Mmmmmmmmmm! Chocolate. (so random)

They followed us across streets, along buildings, across parks and towards  a cab, my least favourite part of the story. We had to get into the cab and we left them while our cab drove away. So I felt a moral from this adventure. Sometimes you have to leave the ones you love behind.  I also learned that you can love something that might be dirty and and dangerous!!!  🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁