Tuesday, April 10, 2012

A Visitor’s Experience of Sri Lanka’s Stray Dogs


This is the sort of experience with stray dogs that I like to read about. This blogger/photographer, Lester Picker, visited Sri Lanka and posted about the “considerable number of dogs” he found everywhere. His blog starts with the typical attitude of seeing a “feral dog problem” but his final paragraph reads:

“None of the dogs I saw were aggressive in any way. Instead, they sometimes come up to you, tail between their legs, looking for scraps of food. Most will adopt a family and just hang out around their homes, if they are in a rural area. In towns and cities, the dogs will hang around parks or in front of shops. People do not seem to mind at all and never once did I see a person shooing a dog away. Peaceful coexistence ala Buddhism.”

This is the more open-minded view of stray dogs in tropical areas I wish more people would take. It’s not always so peaceful and maybe he stills thinks they are a problem but these traditional village dogs that have not been badly treated and therefore are not aggressive to people are a great advertisement for others of their ilk. And this is just what most visitors would see if they opened their eyes more.

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