Dog Days of San Miguel de Allende

January 17 was San Antonio Abad Day honoring the Abbott who’s name-sake graces the street on which I live. He is reputed to have had a fondness for pigs but the details of this affection have been lost or distorted over time. He is now the patron Saint of all animals, and on this day, millions of Mexicans bring their animals to the local parishes to have them blessed. Of course in San Miguel de Allende this means mostly dogs as most cats cannot be caught and other animal forms are rare. By ten in the morning of the 17th many Gringos were lined up in front of most churches with their dogs on leash. Many were disappointed because the priests were not all at work. Greg passed on the opportunity.

Dog stories in SMA are legend. One story has it that a few years ago there were so many stray dogs plying the streets that the local government had to act. They advised dog owners to keep their pets indoors overnight on a set date. They then set poison bait throughout the city and had the early morning garbage detail pick up the hundreds of lifeless bodies lying around which they dumped at the landfill. By evening however the dogs were all back on the streets, hungrier than ever.

Undeterred, the city officials set another date and asked that dog owners again be sure to keep their pets indoors. This time they sent out a detail of sharpshooters overnight who reportedly shot everything that moved. This program proved more successful and the town was not bothered again for some time.

But stray dogs today, some three or four years later, in SMA are quite numerous - many appear quite well fed. The local SPCA, (presumably hoping to forestall more carnage), runs a constant vigil on the problem and picks up many or has many delivered to it by well-intentioned tourists. You can have a new dog here for the price of a vaccination or two, and everyone is strongly encouraged to provide a home for more.

The dogs of SMA that fascinate Greg and I are invisible to the casual passerby. But a dog’s nose is a good nose so these mostly invisible canines almost always begin to yelp when Greg is in their neighborhood. Have a look at a few of the rooftop dogs of SMA in the accompanying pics. Why are they on the roof you may ask? To guard against second story experts in part of course but also – quite a safe place to keep the pooch out of trouble and out of the way. My problem, (and Greg’s delight), is that my roof is not (yet) dog accessible