I Just Burned 37 Calories

There’s a dog outside my window, across the street, tied to a make-shift dog house. I think he’s meant to be ferocious but secretly wags his tail a lot and jumps around like a puppy when he thinks no one’s looking. There’s another dog on the other side of a very old brick storage shack that is also tied up. Sometimes, one of them will jump up onto the windowsill outside the shack while the other does the same on his side and they’ll communicate secret messages to each other. Or they just talk about the weather. Who knows? Dogs are wiley like that. However, this is the extent of their interaction except at meal times when the owners come to refill their food buckets.

I want to go pet this poor dog and tell him I love him but, truth be told, I’m kinda scared of him. His growl is probably bigger than his bite but I’m not gonna be the one to test that theory. Maybe if I bring it some food and slowly earn my way into its good graces? His owners probably wouldn’t like that very much. I think the dog’s meant to guard their…pile of wood? Old clothes hanging on the line? Not really sure but I think they want him ferocious as opposed to friendly.

That’s one of the things you’ll notice here in Bulgaria, there are dogs everywhere. And many of them are not pets, or guard dogs, or tied up to…anything. They are just wandering around, sometimes in packs, scaring the bejeezes out of any unsuspecting Americans. When I first got to my permanent site, I would jog a few days a week (mostly to get rid of the weight my host family put on me with ridiculous amounts of fried food and bread). I had a nice route that took me through the park and past the little white church near my apartment. Then a giant dog starting barking and running after me like it wanted to eat me for lunch and I was only saved cuz some man yelled at him (thank God the dog knew Bulgarian) and stopped chasing but did not stop growling or barking. I managed to make it home before collapsing in a heap of nerves on my bed and thinking, “Never again. I’m never running outside again.”. And I haven’t, I only walk now. And that’s the way it’s gonna stay.

The amount of stray dogs is a real problem and I just wonder how these poor things make it through a snowy winter. Maybe they don’t. I almost took a puppy home once. It was wandering around the park, very little, totally cute, and chasing after my heals in that adorable way puppies do, tripping over his paws and making me want to squeeze the fleas right off him. But I didn’t. I left him in the park. I don’t think my landlord would be too keen on me keeping a dog in my apartment which is barely big enough for me. Sigh.

I didn’t write this cuz I have a solution. I just wanted to acknowledge the problem. There are lots of stray dogs here. And the one across the street is mean but I feel like we could be best friends if he didn’t have teeth. Also, I need to find another way to exercise cuz typing only burns 105 calories an hour (I googled it).

Tomorrow the internet guys are coming after 5 weeks of having to steal my neighbor’s super unreliable internet so hopefully I’ll be able to post Halloween pictures soon (it’s so frustrating when you steal things and they turn out not to work properly, but the world is an imperfect place).

-Age