Toby, my one-year-old Yorkie, has become my regular training partner on my brisk half hour morning walks. It doesn´t always work out because he is a sociable little chap and if he sees another dog he wants to pause and say hello. He signals this by stopping dead in his tracks, front legs rigid, and won´t walk another step. Because he is small and appealing, if I try and coax him along or pull on the lead I get looks from passers by as if I were mistreating him. My solution is to walk him round the streets in the morning, where usually we can avoid other dogs, and take him for a socializing stroll in the park in the afternoon.
Today he missed out on his exercise, though. For some reason he loves accompanying us to the bathroom, whether to shower, shave or whatever. Today when I was ready to go out he had sneaked in to watch my father shave. Rather than disturb them I went out without him.
While I was out I saw a sad sight which is still with me. Some of the people living on the streets here try to earn money by collecting cardboard, etc for recycling. They pull laden carts around the streets picking up whatever they can find. One of these poor men was pulling his cart along when he must have started having some sort of fit. He was lying twitching in the road with the traffic stopped around him and a crowd gathering. I couldn´t do anything to help as all I had with me were my keys, no money or cell phone, so I just kept going. The shame of it was that I had seen him a couple of weeks ago, sitting in our park recovering from a fit while someone tried to get an ambulance to take him to hospital. He wouldn´t go, though, because he had two young dogs in his cart and he didn´t want to leave them. When he was feeling better he had let them out for a little run then popped them back in the cart again. He was obviously very fond of them and they looked fairly well cared for considering their living conditions. I do wish I had been able to help in some way.
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