Cambodian Street Dogs

Here is a blog post about street dogs in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, by two backpackers travelling during their gap year. They have posted a good range of photos showing a variety of dogs, which are worth a look.

What I found particularly interesting was the picture of dalmatians with the comment about them being some of the scariest dogs they had come across and how they were “glad they were tied up”. These are very obviously pets and to me it is absolutely no coincidence that they were the nasty ones. Pets are socialised to people and react to human strangers as they would react to canine strangers i.e. by confronting them. Village dogs generally have a more balanced view of their relationship to people.

In countries with both pets and native streets dogs, time and again an open mind can see that pets are typically far more aggressive towards people than are dogs born to the streets. The problem is that most people do not realise that the dog snarling at them is actually a pet dog on the loose and thereby the generic idea of “street dogs” unfairly gets a bad name.

Learn more about the lives and issue of unowned dogs in my e-book ”A Stray View” available from Bangkok Books (readable as .pdf on any computer)