Day 1

After a long but uneventful day of travel, we made it to Mexico City yesterday, and then after another few hours, finally to the village of Valle de Bravo.

The reason we came here is that Sue and a few others on this trip have been here before to study dogs, for the first time in the mid-2000s with renowned professor and expert in canine behavior, Ray Coppinger. He was one of he first people to purposefully study street dogs, and he would often follow dogs to their prime scavenging grounds—ie city and village dumps. There are a few people on this trip who were fortunate enough to be able to study the “dump dogs” with Coppinger, and we all owe him a lot for reframing how we look at their behavior and understand their evolution from wild animals into pets in our homes.

We started today early and ended late, with multiple walks around the main part and outskirts of town, as well as visiting a training center owned and run by one of our hosts, as well as reviewing videos from today and analyzing and discussing behavior.

We saw many. many dogs in action today—many on the street who were not belonging to anyone specifically, but also many who clearly were, and also variations on both themes. In general, most dogs here are NOT really confined, whether they are owned or not. We did see some dogs on leashes, and some behind barriers, but most were not. And, the ones who were constrained or confined, generally, had the loudest opinions and the most frustrated displays of behavior. When we were walking in the afternoon, we came upon dogs guarding their space more than a few times, and while some of these dogs were stronger in their “move away” signals than others, they still did not display the types of overtly aggressive behavior we have become accustomed to seeing in the States. They would stand their ground and bark at us, even posture, but there was no charging, rushing, or offensive actions that we often see in dogs on leash or behind gates. Oh yes, and more dogs on roofs (or what could be considered roofs!) seen today than I am pretty sure I have ever seen combined in my lifetime. Ha.

On our first very early outing of the day, we saw a young adolescent female dog actually eye, stalk, chase and catch a pigeon in the square. According to Sue that is hugely unusual that these dogs will go through that predatory motor pattern—they aren’t hunters, they are scavengers, so this was a highly unusual event. To add to that, the dog caught the bird, began to finish it, but in her efforts to find an appropriate place to finish and then possibly consume it, she was interrupted by a man who approached her—assumedly to get her to drop the already mangled and mostly dead bird. She backed off and dropped the bird, and moved away. Which was unfortunate for both parties, as she didn’t get to finish the sequence, and the poor bird was left to suffer on its own. Sigh. There was some debate over whether she actually intended to consume the bird. She was young and struck me as “experimenting” more than anything, while she was an accurate hunter, she didn’t have the intensity I see in dogs that have true intent to kill and consume. Either way, it was fascinating to see, especially considering that isn’t a common behavior for these dogs. Sue may or may not have said “Ray would have shit his pants.” She’s hilarious, as I have already mentioned.

The second (or maybe the first) best thing was our “black chain dog.” We saw this dog also for the first time in the early morning. He was cruising around near “pigeon dog” and he had a chain collar on, so we assumed he belonged to someone. Later in the morning we were back at the square. He was begging/hanging out near some of the food vendors so our group started observing him. He started putting on a show, and began soliciting touch from one of our group people. He may have been itchy, he may have been scent marking her, or he may have been soliciting attention, or all of the above, but he was really hamming it up and remaining engaged with the group. As we began to move around the square, he began to follow us. We needed to head back to the hotel for lunch and left the plaza to walk about 1/2 mile. We were in a group of about 12 people, and this dog stayed with us, the entire time. We even purposely stopped and let him go ahead, and he would stop and come back into our group. At one point, we stipped again, he peeled off up a side street and we kept moving, assuming he was done with us. Nope. He came back, found us, and got into the middle of the group again. We finally lost him when we got back to the hotel, but I was told he rolled back past the front of the hotel and seemed to know where we had gone. We are hoping to see him again tomorrow, he is a fascinating character.

This video was when we were right near the hotel, before we seperated from him. Pretty fascinating dynamic here with dogs on roofs, navigating traffic, tons of people in the street etc. You don’t see this everyday in the States!

My main takeaway from today—which is not “new” but it is cemented even further into my brain—is that dogs that have more agency are more mentally healthy dogs. We saw SO many dogs today that were in no way shape or form confined, and yet, were making the choice to attach to their people, or attach to their space. They were able to communicate very calmly and elegantly to other dogs, as well as to humans. They cross the street, again and again, safely (though I’d be lying if I said there weren’t a few cringeworthy moments). And they are allowed just to “be a dog”, which in its natural state, entails a lot of freedom.

I’ll circle back when I get my hands on some more video, mainly hoping to get some of Black Chain Dog walking with our group, as that was really special.

More pics from the day…