This post (along with that on the micros and street art) is slightly different than the rest. This post was written after the trip so that I could write about a particular aspect of the culture that I experienced throughout my entire stay.
If you take a walk in the streets of Chile, chances are you will pass a dog on the street. The streets are full of dogs with no apparent owner. I later found out that about 65% of the dogs on the streets have homes, but the owners let the dogs roam around all day long. A majority of the rest of the dogs on the streets are stray. Most of the stray dogs used to have owners, but were abandoned. Over the years, many efforts were put in place to change this problem. Not only is it a problem for the dogs themselves but the people on the streets as well, because several dogs are bound to end up with diseases such as rabies and bite someone. Also, they defecate in the streets because they have no where else to do it. There have been several attempts to mollify the situation using methods such as mass castration of dogs people found in the streets, but there were so many dogs that it simply hadn't worked. There are also animal activist groups and similar organizations trying to improve the situation, but they are simply too small and scarce to be effective.
Even though it is a big problem, the dogs are generally taken care of by the locals. In my entire experience, I saw no more than 3 street dogs that were clearly emaciated. Ironically, one of them was at Zapallar, the beach with a
high socio-economic status.Most of the dogs seemed to be well fed and relatively clean. Several dogs were even given little dog jackets. The dogs were also usually friendly and calm. I suppose this is because they were used to being around new people all of the time. I also found it interesting that they usually stay around the same areas. For example, there was this one dog (which is pictured at the right) that usually sat on the corner of a street near my house. Every time I walked to or home from the bus stop I could always count on the little dog sitting there and staring me down as I walked to my front door.
It is definitely a sad and unfortunate situation, but this is one of the things to expect should you plan to visit Chile.
