It's a dog's life ....

When my ex-colleague Raghav transferred to the London office of Tata Steel from Mumbai he made one observation in particular that stayed with me: “You don’t see many stray dogs in London”.  This of course made us Londoners laugh as the concept of stray dogs roaming the street was very foreign to us.  After nearly one year here in Freetown I may have a similar reaction myself when I return to the UK.

Freetown is full of stray dogs, all of which appear to have a very limited gene pool.  So it’s ginger or white and spotty like these two – lovingly known by me as “White Dog” and “Puppy”. 

Despite a terrible fear of dogs as a child I have grown into a dog friendly adult which is lucky as I encounter them throughout my days and nights.  The first I encounter each morning are these who live around the corner – docile yes in the day but at night the problem is the incessant barking which can drive me to distraction when trying to sleep.

The prettiest dog, in my opinion, lives up my street too.  Here is Blackie – isn’t she gorgeous.  I am slowly trying to win her affections but she is very nervous and tends to snap if people encroach on her space.

We also have puppies in the street who are camera shy.  Sadly there were 3 but now only 2.  That’s the other side – I’ve seen more dead dogs here than I’ve ever seen.  Dog life expectancy is not high due to neglect, hunger and cars.

Here are some others that we met at Bureh Beach the other Sunday – adorable.

I speak to them all and there are some very lovely characters who make me smile when I see them in the morning.