Dogs of the Phillipines

I love to travel, which is probably obvious if you’ve spent any time looking at my travel posts and photos. I’ve had a passion for traveling for as long as I can remember, and I’ve been lucky enough to see a fair amount of this beautiful planet.

I also love animals. Both of my parents are veterinarians, and I grew up with lots of dogs, cats, rats, birds, fish, a bobcat (briefly) and whatever else wandered through the rural lot we lived on.

While both these things are great, the two together can be trying at times. I’ve mainly traveled in poorer countries – what people used to call the “third world” before they realized that term was archaic and ethnocentric – and poverty means a different take on keeping animals as pets than we usually have here in the U.S.

That means you typically see lots of starving dogs, mangy cats and the like which can be difficult for an empathetic person. I remember once walking out of my cheap hotel in Melaka, Malaysia and hearing a hungry kitten crying from the sewer pipe under the sidewalk. There wasn’t much I could do, and it was brutally heart wrenching.

These critters have the same depth of personality and need for love and attention as any animal. They also often have a temperament and attitude that defies the harsh realities of their lives. I take a lot of photos of animals when I travel. It just seems natural to me.

So on that note, I give you some dogs of the Philippines.