Paseaperros......... the dog walkers of Buenos Aires

a dog walker

Taking your dog for a walk is a whole different ball game in Buenos Aires. Professional dog walkers - paseaperros - will take care not only of your pooch's daily exercise and socializing here, as well as walking him twice a day, they'll groom him, see to his health checks and generally take care of his daily needs. Your dog and several others that is - it's nothing to see eight or ten dogs on their leads out for a walk on their way to the railed-off areas in the local parks that are set aside for the city's mutts. 

The dogs all seem remarkably sanguine about it all, each keeping their place in the hierarchy of the pack - and the paseapaerro's definitely Top Dog.

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Dog walking is a big business in Buenos Aires, particularly in affluent neighbourhoods such as Recoleta or Palermo, where the residents are either too lazy or too busy to look after their pets, and where you'll often see a dog walker controlling group of 10 or 15 dogs. Dog walkers earn up to 100 pesos a month per dog. It is booming business in Buenos Aires. Apparently there's a law that prohibits professional dog walkers walking more than eight animals at one time but it seems nobody takes any notice. I've seen a guy walking 13 pooches of all different sexes, sizes and breeds at the same time - all seemingly under control and getting on with one another. I've no idea how they do it. 

street dog in la bocca

I'm still surprised that at the number of dogs on the streets and a lot of them are strays. According to the Argentine Society for the Protection of Animals there is around one dog for every three people in the Federal Capital of Buenos Aires. That puts the pooch population at more than one million.

Of course with so many dogs comes the poop, pooh, muck, shit, caca, mierda - whatever you want to call it. It's everywhere. The problem of dog faeces in BA is so bad there is even a blog called “I’m tired of dog shit” or, in Spanish, “Estoy harto de la mierda de perro” dedicated to documenting dog defecation around the city.

During my first few months in BA, especially when I was doing a lot of walking, putting my foot in it was at least a weekly occurrence. Now I have a 'porteño-like' (or should I say pooh-teño!) radar that keeps me out of the brown stuff. It does appear, to me at least, that a few more porteños are now carrying plastic bags to clean up their pets' mess, however I recently learned that many Argentines consider it 'beneath them' to pick up their own pooch poop.

Yesterday I watched a well-dressed middle-aged woman  look away while she allowed her Labrador to drop a huge steaming turd in the middle of the pavement. She then headed for the shops as if she hadn't a care in the world. The problem is that letting your dog foul the footpath isn't deemed disgusting by the locals in Buenos Aires - it's actually socially acceptable. 

 

The thick of it seems to be that (pardon the pun) they just don't give a shit!