I'm an animal lover. I grew up with dogs and cats and horses and a few other critters running around. I love animals and it's been a very lonely existence here without a pet.
Here in Myanmar, street dogs are a huge problem. There are so many!!! After generations of breeding and natural selection all the dogs look the same. They are all either a shade of brown or brown and white. Occasionally you will see a black one, but not very often.
Some dogs adopt a family and that family takes care of them the best they can. With times being hard and there isn't a lot of money to go around, that usually means scraps of food, but no medical care.
Others eek out a living on the streets, fighting for scraps. It's not uncommon to see dogs limping through the streets or walking around with a prolapsed uterus or some other heinous injury
It breaks my heart.
Here in front of our apartments 3 dogs have claimed this area for themselves. The guards take care of them. These dogs are friendly and well fed. They're actually fat and picky! My old dog would have killed for a pizza crust, but these dogs won't even bother.
The younger female is such a sweetie. During the hot season temperatures reach over 100f (38c) and the young female would come to our apartment. She usually did not like any food we offered, but always had a drink of fresh cold water and she would take a nap in the a/c before heading out. Now that it has cooled off a bit she doesn't visit much anymore but still greets us with the most annoying high pitched whine when she sees us.
There is also a male and an older female I call "Fat Mama". Both very friendly and happy to see us.
Recently, I have seen on the Yangon expat Facebook page, someone is going around capturing the dogs and taking them away. Rumors are that they are going to a shelter, other rumors are they are going to be killed. From my research, eating dogs in Myanmar is not a common practice.
There is no spay or neuter program. Coming from the states where everything is sterilized, I was surprised to see so many dog testicles!
I see cats here and there, but there don't seem to be as many of them. As we prepare to leave Myanmar, I hope that the apartment dogs will be safe and well looked after.
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