Raining Cats and Dogs
In Oria, we are mainly in a small town and rural area. One of the main features of living in such a place is the cats and dogs everywhere! Here at Shepherd’s Rest, they alone have three cats – Patsy, Livvy, and Evie – as well as four dogs – Taffy, Saffron, Lucky, and Ivy.
The girls are completely obsessed with all of these pets and have shown their nature as true animal lovers. Within a week of being here, they begged to buy animal treats (with the owner’s permission) to show the pets love with food. As well, that first week the host family was away in the UK and tasked the girls with showing them love while they were gone. Emmeline and Katia were happy to oblige!
During their week away, the girls started noticing Patsy the cat on the roof adjacent to our unit. Given that bug screens seem pretty optional around here, we pulled some pieces of leftover chicken from the fridge and I did my best to toss a few onto the roof, eventually coaxing Pasty in through the window and into our unit. Of course, the girls were ecstatic!
Patsy only stayed a short while that first time and soon dashed back out the window. Again, of course, the girls were disappointed. However, this provided a good teaching moment for them that when you show animals love and respect their needs, they will return on their own accord.
From there on, we set up a water bowl in the corner of the girls’ room and they were able to offer treats to Patsy. As our time progressed in Oria, Patsy began just coming and going from our unit as she pleased, often sleeping with (or waking up!) members of our family throughout the night. We think that overall, she feels safe here, so keeps returning.
The girls both love Ivy the dog best, but the more interesting dog around here is definitely Lucky, who is a bit of a troublemaker! The first time we realized this, we were heading over to Bar Gasolinera for our morning café con leche and Lucky decided that she was going to follow us there! Overall, that was okay except that we felt a bit bad with the host family away and the fact that we felt responsible for her safety (we didn’t realize we would be followed like that).
Again, Lucky followed us later that week to the swimming pool. She had initially chased a cat off into a nearby field, so had disappeared and we thought that was the end of it. But just as we were nearing the pool, who returned? Lucky, of course! Despite the “no dogs” signage at the pool entrance, Lucky came in and was sniffing at the pool’s edge in seconds. The lifeguard immediately came over to me, complaining in Spanish that dogs aren’t allowed. So, what can I do? Play the tourist card of course!
In my broken Spanish, I basically said “no mi perro” (not my dog), which it isn’t, and left him to chase the dog away and close the gate. However, that stubborn Lucky stayed near the entrance and ultimately followed us home. Good thing the lifeguard wasn’t watching. But we decided after that we couldn’t let that incident repeat itself, so took better precautions subsequent times. Lucky also stole a kid’s dinner sausage one night and has shown up in our unit begging for food a few times (which we don’t oblige inside), but she is nonetheless a sweet dog!
Aside from the local resident dogs, there are other dogs throughout the town. I’d say that most seem decently behaved except for the five crazy dogs at this one property on the walk over to Bar El Frax!
However, this town seems to have a surplus of cats! There’s this one property on one of our walking routes that I swear has at least two dozen cats! In contrast to their respect for Patsy, the girls will go chasing all of these cats every time they see one within arm’s length. The locals don’t seem to be bothered by their animal welfare given how many kittens we see and we have heard tales of dogs culling them around town.
Getting set to leave Oria, the girls will understandably be sad about leaving all of these pets they have come to love. It is not uncommon for them to spend hours in the playroom just reading books, cuddling up to a cat or dog, and giving them treats.
We think adopting a pet will likely be in the cards on our return to Canada!