One of the things I find most charming about Sucre, as a dog lover, is the dogs. There are lots of “wild” dogs which roam the street but they are the furthest thing from wild you can imagine. The people of Sucre have such a lovely relationship with these dogs – everyone does a little bit to look after them. The dogs don’t have owners but in reality they are community dogs.

You can tell they are well looked after – they are the fattest street dogs you’ve ever seen! The people of Sucre feed these dogs and in winter build little houses for them and clothe them. It’s not unusual to see a dog trotting around in a fancy doggy vest. I assumed that these must be domestic dogs that just managed to escape the house but my local buddy Vicente tells me that no, that would be a street dog but someone has given it a coat to keep warm. The rule is: no collar = no owner. Fish likes to paraphrase an article he read that said that if all the humans disappeared one day shitty little dogs would die out within 6 days. The amount of these fluffy little dogs roaming the streets evidences the fact that the humans really are helping these dogs along.

San Roque is the patron saint of dogs and his church is pretty snazzy. It’s quite a popular church in a nice part of Sucre and they have big market to raise money to buy stuff for the street dogs some weekends. We also stumbled across a bridal expo which was raising money for the dogs.

A few years ago one dog died after eating rat poison set down in the main square. The people were outraged! There was a double page spread in the newspaper about it (which is laminated and hanging on the wall in our Spanish school) and the bait was removed.

It certainly makes for a fun time walking around Sucre and spotting these dogs. They are so chilled, they never harass you. And at night when you’re walking home from the pub one will often join you and escort you home.

Title Time: “Dogs are Everywhere” by Pulp. I feel that Jarvis Cocker must’ve written this song in Sucre!