"Please, Mr. Gandalf, sir, don't hurt me. Don't turn me into anything... unnatural."

As squirrels are to suburbs--trash eating, nearly domesticated, bird food masticating, creatures that are everywhere in abundance--so dogs nearly are to Romania.

At first I was shocked by the amount of dogs that I saw on street corners, fields, and every locale I visited in Romania. All of a sudden I understood the "dog-catcher" references in Disney movies from my childhood. 

Then I was saddened as I saw how many of these animals have suffered from fights with other dogs and other ailments living out in the open. I learned that since Romania joined the European Union, they have been pressured to do more in the way of animal shelters and sterilization and have indeed made strides in this direction.  Many of the dogs you see in cities have tags that show that they have been sterilized and given basic immunizations. Still I wondered, in my Western-enlightenment-oriented sort of way, if it weren't better that they simply be put down. 

But lately I've learned to see them as a blessing. It's true that their lives are difficult compared to dogs in America--even Romanians who own dogs are abhorred that others in the West spend as much as $600 a year (probably cheap compared to most dog owners) on dog food instead of giving them scraps--but their lives are also blessed. I've yet to see a wild dog who looks starving--in fact, many of these dogs become neighborhood pets, cared for by the people who live nearby but don't want them in their homes. And it's been neat to see the mother dogs burrow holes in parks to protect their pups, a far cry from the artificial environments in which many western dogs reproduce. 

So with these thoughts in mind, I here present to you the "Dog Blog"--the best and cutest pictures of these adorable mutts!

This is Emma's great Aunt's dog--I asked about his name and she took a second, then replied, "Bob."

Dach-weiler? This was Emma's favorite--mostly because he has penguin feet (though it's hard to tell from the picture)

This is Tatae's dog. I asked what his name was--"Caine." (pro: kuh-ee-neh, "Dog")