blog 63: it's a dog eat dog world out there...

dogs. there are dogs everywhere in this city. dogs on the street, dogs in the metro, dogs in the trams, dogs in purses, dogs in backpacks, dogs on bikes (in baskets of course), dogs in bars, dogs in stores, dogs tied up outside groceries and banks, dogs, dogs, dogs. now i love love dogs as we all know (and can't wait to get my own...soon!) but in the spring? dogs, dogs, dogs everywhere means dog poo, dog poo, dog poo everywhere.

There are 1,223,368 people living in prague. oh, and me so 1,223,369 (oh, i am still an illegal immigrant, don't worry about it). and over 40% have dogs, so that leaves us with about 489,348 dogs running around the city. and that is assuming that each person only has one dog. (and we know dogs, once you get one you just want more. although not nearly as bad as "cat people", ew.) anyways, assuming each dog poops once a day (which we know is not true)... well, lets just say that is a lot of dog poo.

it's even better when you have a line full of 25 preschoolers on a walk and they all start screaming about the dog poo and start running away from it. lovely. one afternoon earlier this spring one of my kids, joshua was the unlucky one to step in the dog poo. all the kids were grossed out by how bad it smelled and were yelling that josh was covered in "dog ca-ca". (ca-ca in czech is preschool lingo for poo poo.) we got back to school and got joshua out of his boots and left them on the front porch to air out. later that day when his mom came to pick him up she remarked that she couldnt find joshua's outside shoes (we have to wear separate pairs for inside and outside). i realized i left them on the porch and told her why there were out there. she simply laughed and exclaimed, "oh, good!". i was confused. "oh, no, no." i explained. "he stepped in dog POOP, and it got all over his shoes." she was russian and i was semi-explaining in czech (czenglish, as we like to call it at school. half english, half czech) and thought maybe she was confused by the language barrier. "ya, dog poop! it's good!" she said. she went on to explain that in Russian culture if you step in dog poop it is a sign of good luck and means you will go on to be very wealthy. so she was just proud of josh for stepping in some poo and making some money!

it just goes to show that every cloud has a silver lining!

love love (huff huff) from prague.