Unconditional love

Every morning for the last 7 years this friend of mine and I head off to the beach near our homes for our hour-long morning constitutional. Its been fun doing this almost without fail every day of the week except on Sundays. One of the first things that we encounter on our walk are a few stray dogs who look so happy to see us early morning when they are just about stretching their limbs and muscles to begin their day. One of them, a scrawny, small white bitch is so happy to see my friend that she goes into a barking spree that wakes up the neighbourhood people and dogs! All she wants is a simple petting and maybe a scratch under her belly and she is so happy that she's bouncing up and down and prancing about barking in that happy way.

Then there's another mongrel that actually breast fed her daughter's pups when they were little ones'! She too seems to just need a little petting and off she goes to start her hunt for food to keep her going for the day. As we get closer to the beach we encounter yet another white dog but this time its a male who seems to love to jump and rest his front paws on my belly, as he does so he makes this strange growling sound that almost makes it seem like he's angry with us! Being male he needs a little more than petting - he actually expects you to play around with a piece of rag or an old shoe that he expects you to tug at while he pulls in the opposite direction!

On our return leg of the walk we take a slightly different route from what we traversed on the forward trip - this is to meet with a beautiful specimen of the Dalmatian breed - he's huge and so full of life. He usually looks out for two people walking towards him and bounds towards the twosome but every once in while he bounds towards the wrong folks and the poor guys dont know whether to turn and run or stay their ground! The dog answers to the name 'Samsung' - I'm sure the owners meant it to be Samson!

These dogs dont get anything other than a few strokes of affection from the two of us yet they yearn for our company and affection and look forward to our presence every morning! It is indeed so heart-warming to feel the unfailing, unconditional love of these dogs - it almost makes me want to ask 'why cant people be more like these dogs'?