Maria meets Boyar ..... and Barbie

Maria is a short-haired Podengo Medio from the Cape Verdes. She is always happy when she returns from icy London for a winter holiday in the land of her birth. She sunbathes and runs for miles.

Boyar, we met as a puppy. a couple of years ago. He came to the bar and jumped on the sofa beside me. A waiter soon arrived and told him to go: I explained that he could not read the sign which bans dogs and chinese. He retorted that I must take him away. So I explained that he was not my dog. The waiter said well "he really likes you."

Boyar is a male Podengo Medio, just a little taller than Maria - perhaps her brother from a later litter. He was rescued by a Spaniard and then passed to a Portuguese, who changed his name. But we prefer Boyar to Street, which seems a little unkind. Most of the dogs here live on the beach or the streets and the females can produce as many as nine puppies, every year.

Barbie is a brindle (gray and black) Podengo Medio with a touch of Belgian Shepherd. She was abandoned possibly by the international school outside our Condo when a child was delivered to or from school on Saturday. We took her to the vet who had treated her a month earlier. Although only five months old, she has already been rejected by two native owners. She is terrified of being taken in cars, expecting to be abandoned again. She arrived in the front yard of our house as we were preparing a fish barbecue, thirsty, starving and with a leg that had been broken and reset badly. Hence the name Barbie.

The locals want only puppies. They import pedigree dogs from Europe, for their kids. Tony, an American from New Bedford ,Mass (originally from another Cape Verde island) breeds Belgian Shepherds for sale on the islands. One of them likely parented or grand-parented Barbie. Once upon a time all the dogs here were either from Portugal or Newfoundland. So we had a neat mix of Labradengos with some purely Podengo and a few pocket Labradors. All the dogs were yellow: but now the gene pool has been hugely expanded with dogs as unsuited to the tropics as St Bernards and Huskies.

Things here progress at a snail`s pace. But the RAF and USAF are setting up airbases on two islands. Perhaps the Cape Verdes will join NATO - it is after all in the North Atlantic, and already has a powerful radar transmitter manned clandestinely by the American military.. It would help the dogs, if more dog lovers come to live here.

Barbie turns out to be a small , female Malinoise or Belgian Shepherd.  She is the result of breeding here by Tony, an American from New Bedford, Mass.  She has probably been bred from two puppies from one of his litters, as he stopped his own program three years ago.

She is now under Tony`s training to eliminate her habit of circling walkers and barking at them. This has led to rocks being thrown at her  by both locals and German tourists. Of course, they have no chance of hitting her but a real risk of being bitten. She is as fast and agile as a Podengo Medio and Maria our PM enjoyed playing with her.  

She now lives with a local waiter who works at Columbus, an Italian restaurant, owned by the chief organiser of the neutering campaigns.  The German vets are here in their annual Canute-like struggle to stem the waves of new-born and abandoned puppies.  These are no longer just Podengos and Labradengos as  people have import pedigree dogs from Europe and even a pit-bull from the US.  

Things are looking up here with the first pro-capitalist government since the revolution in 1974 when the Portuguese colonists left in a rush. The World Bank has forced the sale of the state airline -  a byword for incompetence - to Icelandair.  New Boeings are on their way with Norsemen at the controls and their will be flights to Boston , Miami and the main european airports.

The HQ has been moved to Sal, the main tourist island, where the Royal Air Force is establishing an airbase and taking over air traffic control.  Now all we need is an American to run the airport.