Go Dog Go

Cape Verde is full of dogs. Few have owners. And fewer walk on all fours. They are street dogs and we are told as missionaries never to touch them. Many of them look mangy so the advise is well placed. The interesting thing about being a street dog here is that you pick your street and you stay on it. We have a pack of four on our street. A black one named Buddy, two brown females that are both call Brownie  (after a dog Robert had growing up) and then there is this brown and white one called Jack. We know his name because we found an old picture of him in one of the mission computers. The caption read, Jack the mission dog. The people on our street will randomly put food and water out for them but no one claims them. Yet they serve a great purpose. This is their street and they know us. They will not bark at anyone with a white shirt and tie on - ever - no matter how many missionaries or how loudly they come barreling down the street. We belong on their street. But if the  sweet lady selling bananas comes down our street, they bark like crazy. I use to be annoyed with them and then I worried about them as some limp and one was pregnant. Then one day I feel in love with them - though I do not touch them. I was out on the street standing behind the big van addressing boxes we had loaded into it. I was alone but I wasn't worried. It was daylight and this is a very safe area. I hadn't notice a man coming up behind me. I will never know if he meant any harm because he was not allowed to get close enough. Buddy raced over and got between me and the approaching man. I thought he was going to take the man's head off. The man turned and went another direction. Since then they are our street dogs. They spend most of their days laying around the vacant lot across the street, except for Jack who occasional sneaks in the gate and gets to rest on the cool patio tile until someone figures out how to lure him out again. This is a Brownie - sleeping. I thought she was dead or wounded when we first pulled up but she had just found a great position and was out cold. She stayed asleep long enough for me to get her picture.