Dog Walk for Charity…in Brazil!
I am a true dog lover. I view animals as a blessing in our lives, but there is a special place in my heart for dogs.
Living abroad in a place like Brazil is difficult for the dog lover. Homeless pups roam the streets on a daily basis. Some represent survival of the fittest and look like they manage to get the food they need while others seem lost and delirious from hunger. It is a tough thing to witness on a daily basis.
Fortunately there are organizations such as APARU even in smaller towns like where I live. APARU is an acronym for what translates in English to the Association for the Protection of Street Animals. They raise awareness about animal cruelty and provide assistance to those dogs I often see roaming the streets.
They held their first Cãominhada over the weekend and I got to attend!
First of all the name of the event is just great. Cãominhada is a play on words in Portuguese coming from the word cão for dog and caminhada which is a walk. So it ends up being the Portuguese language version of Dog Walk.
Those attending were required to bring one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of food to take part in the event. This food will go to help the efforts of the organization.
It was an exciting morning. It is hard to judge the turn out of an event such as this in a smaller Brazilian city. It is a place where both extreme poverty and wealth exists together. I really had no idea how many people had dogs or cared for this type of effort.
I was overwhelmed to see almost 200 people in attendance. Dogs of all shapes and sizes came out to share their support. Smaller breeds such as Lhasa Apso and Toy Poodles are common here, but this event brought even what are rare breeds for this area. There were Basset Hounds, Pugs and several varieties of Labs. Then there were, of course, many rescue dogs that had been taken in by loving families.
The walk was short, just a few blocks to the Cathedral in the middle of the city and back. However, the morning was heating up fast and many of the dogs decided that they might catch a break by lying down in the middle of the road among walkers. Some owners resorted to scooping them up and carrying them to the finish.
This made me think about some of the exhausting ends I’ve had to the events I’ve participated in. How nice it would have been to have someone scoop me up and carry me across the finish line!
Do you love dogs? Tell me about some of the animal charity events you have participated in.
You can view pictures of the event here.
Some of this information is cross-posted at www.blondieinbrazil.blogspot.com.
Hi Lori,
I went to your Blondie in Brazil blog – nice job. And I see that you are a Suite101 writer too. I’m the Herbs & Spices feature writer on Suite101.
Hi Lynn,
I’ll have to check out some of your articles.
Thanks! I actually just stopped writing for them because they were a huge investment of time without much return. Hopefully you are having better luck with being a feature writer!