For the dogs!

If you know me, you know I love animals, and growing up, dogs were my special favorite. We had many members of the family who were dogs (literally, that's not an insult to any family members). Over time, I grew especially fond of smaller breeds, as I can hold and squeeze them more easily, however, all dogs are my friends. And they are everywhere here. My dream come true, no? At first I thought so, but turns out no way José. They roam as free as the birds, and this is their world, not yours. Up until last week, we were cohabiting quite amicably, however, that all came crashing down last Wednesday in service. Damaris had warned me, I should've listened. Two adorable puppies, anxiously looking up at us and vigorously wagging their behinds. How could I resist? As I bent down, I muttered out loud "I wonder where the mama is..." and as the words were coming out of my mouth, oh my word, there she was. She came flying around this wall with such a vengeance that I thought I'd have a heart attack. She was chasing us while barking and snarling, bearing her vicious teeth. We ran in the opposite direction, but it's not good to turn your back on these creatures, so I'm running backwards, flailing my literature holder at her, fairly screaming at this point. We managed to get away, and thankfully no one got hurt, but even still, we decided we'd go find the others to work house-over with them for more protection. That didn't work either. We got like a house ahead of them up the hill and out comes a vicious little black one. It wouldn't leave us alone; it was quite menacing, and it knew that it had us feeling cornered. We had had enough. We finished the territory up and went home shaken. Now I'm terrified when a pooch comes in my direction, so I need some reinforcements. Our friend Doug from Georgia, who is serving here in Cuenca with his family, fixes a wicked all-natural brew that the dogs can't stand. You just spray it in their direction, and off they go! Sweetness, hook it up please!

But what about the other animals? It seems they all have it out for us now; for example, Damaris and I were walking to the store today, and on our shortcut road, we were admiring some baby sheep and a baby cow as we were innocently walking along. Well I think the cow knew that he could scare us, because he starting stampeding toward the sheep, herding them in our direction! The sheep are now barreling toward us, and I grab Damaris as she yells out...Just in time, the sheep veered away from us just enough to miss us. The cow didn't like that, since his intention was to get us good, so he mooed very loudly at us the rest of the way down the road.

I thought I was a friend to the animals! Remember the monkeys? What happened?