Buenos Aires (dpa) – Plaza San Martin in the center of Buenos Aires holds a special place in the hearts of many Argentinians. In 1807 it was the location of a victory over the British who were attempting to seize control of the city. Today it's a home to the city's poor and their pet dogs. Miguel Soler is one of the homeless people who sleep at night on the square. He found his crossbreed dog Pippo beside a garbage can a few months ago. “The little bundle had almost starved to death,” he says. Pippo is one of thousands of stray dogs on the streets of Buenos Aires. Sick and starving, there is no-one to look after them and they are becoming a big problem for the city. Car accidents involving stray dogs are on the rise, and roads and paths are polluted with dog excrement. According to the Argentinian animal welfare organization ADDA, there is one dog for every fourth member of Buenos Aires' population of almost three million. However, evidence suggests there are huge discrepancies between the lives of many of those dogs. Take Pinky, for example; Pinky is a Toy Spaniel who has chicken breast with couscous to eat in her pink-colored dog bowl. “Of course it's all organic,” says Mafalda Lopez. The 32-year-old psychologist is proud of the high standards she provides for her pet dog. Once a month Pinky is taken to an animal beauty salon for a manicure and haircut. Each morning Pinky is picked up by a person responsible for taking it for a walk. “Pasepaero,” as dog-walkers are locally known, is a completely normal profession in Argentina. Pasepaeros can often be seen with up to 10 dogs on a leash strolling in parks. Lopez' favorite store is owned by Marian Goluboff. She's been designing clothing and accessories for dogs for the past 10 years. The most expensive item in her collection is a lamb wool-padded, red, winter coat that costs 900 pesos (207 dollars). She has clothing for every occasion including jogging sweatshirts with hoods as well as ball gowns. Business is brisk and she has plenty of loyal customers like Lopez. “Many of my clients have neither a partner nor children and they have professional commitments. Their pet dogs are surrogate family members,” says Goluboff. “To be honest, in a big city like Buenos Aires, you shouldn't have a pet dog,” says Martha Gutierrez. Gutierrez is president of ADDA and has dedicated herself to dogs. The biggest event in her life was her successful campaign to have mobile gas chambers for dogs banned 30 years ago. Up until 1979 stray dogs were caught in Buenos Aires, gassed in the chambers and their bodies were then burnt. Stray dogs are no longer put down. “But right up to today South Americans have a different relationship to dogs than Europeans. There are lapdogs and there are stray dogs. Normal and appropriate animal care has become rare,” she says. Gutierrez believes the solution to the stray dog problem is in mass castration paid for by the government. Not only stray dogs are reproducing at an uncontrolled rate: it's quite common for “Lady and the Tramp” situations to occur. “The female dog of a wealthy owner meets a stray male dog and then suddenly there's a new generation of pups that no-one wants to look after,” says Oscar Enrique Lencinas, director of the Argentinian branch of the Louis Pasteur Institute for medical research. According to the findings of one of the institute's surveys, only 15.5 percent of the 426,000 registered dogs in Buenos Aires are castrated. Recently the institute has been offering free castrations. Animal rights activist and professor of pathology Patricia Koscinczuk says the problem is not the lack of places to get dogs castrated, it's the machismo of many of Buenos Aires' male residents. “Some of them behave as if they are being castrated and not their dogs,” says Koscinczuk of the average male visitor to her clinic. Miguel Soler is not concerned with that problem, however. That's because every day is about survival for him and Pippo – two individuals trying to survive on the margins of Argentinian society. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/IOQPp Tags: Argentina, Buenos Aires, Dogs, Strays Section: Animals, Editor's choice, Features, Latest News, South America
