The Dogs of Santiago

I don't know if I've ever mentioned it before but there are a lot of dogs in Santiago. There are always dogs wandering in the streets and everytime I go jogging there's a dog in every person's yard. The number of stray dogs though is amazing. They are all over the place and in every part of the city.

I can't even tell what breed they are. They are so intermixed and shaggy it's hard to tell how many different types of dogs are actually in them. I think people have dogs for protection, to keep burglers out of their homes, but they don't neuter them which just lets them breed like crazy.

The dogs seem pretty used to people though. I have only had one dog scare me. I was walking to class and a dog that was lying on the sidewalk started snapping at me. I moved to the other side the street at a brisk pace. But other then that they seem pretty nice and people here ignore them as they run around.

Funny story, Makiko, one of the girls in the program was going to class and one of her dogs that live at her host house (the family has 6) followed her on the bus. The bus driver refused to go and the dog ran up and down the aisle of the bus. Ben, another guy in the program who was with her, took the dog and threw it out the door.

Needless to say, I don't think Mom would want to live here.