South America has a big problem. It’s not the crime rate, the people or anything along those lines. It’s the stray dogs.
Pretty much every city in South America has thousands of stray dogs roaming around. The chances are that some of those dogs have rabies and other issues that could potentially harm humans. За минулі 8 months in South America, I was pretty passive about the issue. The dogs had never done anything to me, except annoy me by pooping all over the sidewalks. That was until I visited Cuenca, Еквадор.
Cuenca doesn’t have nearly as many stray dogs as Santiago, Chile but the dogs that I’ve seen here are vicious.
Нещодавно, I was taking a routine jog around our neighborhood, just outside of Cuenca’s city center. Around our area, there are several dogs with owners and several more stray dogs. As usual, the neighbors’ dogs barked and snarled at me behind their owners’ fences.
But this time it was a bit different. There were a couple of dogs that had been either released or stray around our neighborhood. I was nearing the end of my run and had just run up a hill, when I caught a glimpse of a dog in the corner of my eye. A mid sized dog was charging straight at me. Right when I saw it, I knew that it was coming for me. Its eyes were locked on my body.
Immediately, I stopped running and stayed in place – breathing hard because of altitude and out of fear. I froze hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. I was ready to rip the dog’s eyes out if I had to.
In a couple seconds, the stray dog had made it from the end of the block to where I was standing.
Вдячно, the dog stopped his charge less than a foot in front of me – but the danger wasn’t over yet. He made himself look intimidating and snarled at me while I slowly backed off trying not to scream like a girl. I faced the dog while walking backwards until I had turned a corner and was out of sight.
Once out of sight, I sprinted back home. I’ve got a feeling that the dog attacked me because of the shirt I was wearing…
After the incident, I thought some more about what could have happened. There’s a huge possibility that the dog could have had rabies or some other disease. I could have potentially died.
There are stray dogs all over South America that all have the potential to harm a human. In Santiago, Чилі, 3 dogs had followed our family at the same time while we were walking around the city center. That event could have gone horribly wrong if one of the dogs randomly attacked one of us like what happened to me.
Not only are the dogs potentially dangerous, they are also a public nuisance. While eating lunch outside in Colonia, Уругвай, several stray dogs ran under our table and even tried to eat our food.
Both Montevideo and Buenos Aires among many cities in South America are riddled with dog poop. Almost every sidewalk and beach in Montevideo is blessed with the waste of dogs. It’s due to the combination of people not picking up after their pets and the stray dogs.
Don’t get me wrong, I like animals, but someone needs to so something about the stray dogs in South America.
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Stray animals (especially dogs) are very helpless animals, they have no way of helping themselves when in danger, they have limited food, and are very little muscle mass on their bones. I know because I have adopted and cared for a coonhound/golden lab mix, she is a lot better now but when I first adopted her she was only skin and bones. Her previous owner had given no attention to her and she was taken by the dog pound more than 3 раз. Her owner decided that she didn’t want to deal with her any more so she just gave up her dog and the Humane Society took her in. Even in Chilton, Wisconsin there are plenty of stray dogs to last a life time. I can only imagine what places like Chile and Ecuador deal with.
You sound so heartless. Do you have any idea how lonely and hungry those dogs are? Instead you focus on how they ruin your trip.
Really