Handsome Hairless Pup – Photo: L. Weikel

Hairless Dog

The other day, I was scrolling through old photos and came upon this one of a hairless dog I encountered in an open-air market in Iquitos, Peru, in 2012. Iquitos is located on the banks of the Amazon River.

One of the things I noticed about Iquitos was the abundance of ownerless dogs running free. Since one rarely encounters them (at least in the numbers I found in many areas of Peru, but especially in Iquitos), I was surprised to find them ubiquitous yet surprisingly unassuming. Apparently they’ve honed their survival skills to sheer perfection, knowing precisely how close to stay to humans to survive (and most, apparently, to be happy), but also how to remain free from ownership.

I found this one to be simply amazing looking.

Another Creature

I should mention, I encountered this creature early in the day, as my friends and I made our way to a dock, where a relatively small craft awaited us to shuttle us up the Amazon to a nature preserve. That visit ended up yielding a rather unexpected encounter with yet another creature, one I’d never heard of before.

It wasn’t my intention to write about that visit tonight. Maybe I’ll save it for another time.

Erp! That sort of violates a tenet I’ve expressed other times discouraging the tendency I sometimes have of hoarding my thoughts and ideas. But you know what? I’m tired and I need to hunt for a photo of that other creature in order to illustrate my post appropriately.

In the meantime, I don’t want to detract from my hairless hound’s moment in the sun. It seems to me, this canine deserves its moment in the sun all by itself. It really was an amazing looking creature – and not the only one that sported this hairless look. I’ll admit I was shocked when I saw my first hairless pup, but this one was by far the most handsome. Or pretty.

I guess it’s all in the eyes of the beholder.

(T+113)