The Dog

In Ecuador, there are a lot of dogs.

A lot of street dogs.

A lot of dirty, mangy street dogs.

The girls in the house can’t help but fall in love with all of them. We see the potential for cuddling; after a few (read, 8) flea baths, a hair cut, and a miraculous memory wipe/personality swap to backtrack from years of abuse, any street dog could be redeemed in the eyes of Jocelyn, Serena and I. The boys feel a little differently, instead dwelling on the fact that most of the street dogs look like they’ve been hit by a truck. A truck filled with Ugly.

So despite the girl’s longing for a dog to call our own, our house is still animal free.

Except there is this one that I KNOW we could get Mark in on. He’s not a street dog per say (aka he belongs to someone, minor detail), but he is pretty awesome. (Side note: most Ecuadorians who own dogs (and want to keep them looking somewhat healthy) keep them on their unfinished rooftops, since fenced in yard space is essentially unheard of. Or reserved for chicken coops and cow grazing.) Anyway, on our way to programs everyday, we pass under one of these roof-dwelling dogs (who actually lives on the abandoned second floor of a building). He is huge. Enormous. And Mark’s tall enough that they can almost get each other. And they have a bond, as in the dog wants to destroy Mark, and Mark wants to push the dog to it’s absolute limits, taunting him ceaselessly and essentially begging him to jump. Which, if he ever did, would be the end of Marco as we know him.

This is when the daily picture really comes in handy, huh :)

Holly

(Mark and his bff)