Dogs (Day 12)

I am going to cheat a bit today and get someone else to do my work for me. We have two birthdays in the house and I therefore need to write my blog early before joining in the celebrations. If anything fascinating happens I can always include it tomorrow, but I’m pretty sure it will just involve lots of food, lots of wine, a late night and an early morning.

I’ve noticed that there are hundreds of dogs in Venice. You’ve probably noticed too as pretty much every blog I write features one of our lovely four legged friends. As a bit of an animal lover I thought I may just have a built-in radar for these things and so notice them more, but now I’m certain there are more dogs in Venice than people.

Here is a very hot looking one I met. Ahhh.

 
And here is one we met late last night, who wasn’t quite so ‘Ahhh’. He was a bit more ‘Grrrr’.

In all fairness he was a little lost and frightened, or so we thought. He kept barking and running around, seemingly looking for his owner. We rang the number on his collar, but no answer. Then the group sitting next to us had more luck and informed the owner of his whereabouts so they could come and collect the poor little thing. We waited and waited but no one came. I was starting to consider whether our landlady would mind another lodger, much to the concern of my fellow tenants, when the dog ran off. I followed him into another square, where he still seemed distressed, barking and generally winding himself up. There I discovered he was a bit of a local character. He frequents the bars of the Rialto Market with his owner most nights and always acts like this - small dog syndrome. His name was Ginger.   

With all these canine antics comes a lot of dog excrement. The rule of picking it up in a bag doesn’t seem to apply, or if a particularly conscious owner has bothered, they then just leave a little bag of poo on the street instead, which is even worse in my opinion.   

The one that deposited this charming pile was obviously not impressed by the service they received from Ikea.

So with the scene nicely set I’d like to introduce you to Maggie. (I wanted to insert a picture of Maggie ehre, but my computer won't let me). Maggie visits Venice every year and writes an excellent blog on her time here, a bit like me but much more useful. So I thought I’d leave you in her capable paws for today’s information, while I go off and let my hair down. Check out her blog, Maggie in Venice, here.