Crossing the Street

When you see a dog out with his owner in the US, the dog is usually on a leash. I’ve always admired dog guardians who have such good control over their animals that they don’t need a leash, but I haven’t been that good at training mine. In Cuba leashes are rare, and yet dogs are numerous. I watched a family of three crossing a busy street near my hotel with their dog following them and, of course, no leash. I held my breath for the dog’s safety as they crossed the street, but he stayed right with his family, and he avoided any problems with cars.

Well, that’s OK for a family’s companion animal, but what about strays, you might ask. It turns out that strays still learn to get around on the streets without having families to follow. Three years ago when we rescued Aló Presidente on the streets of Vedado, he got our attention by following us. We were walking down the main artery of Vedado, a street with a wide parkway named Avenue of the Presidents. As we moved along, we crossed the side streets that that didn’t seem too dangerous. Aló followed us without hesitation. As we neared our hotel, we waited at the curb to cross to the wide parkway in the middle of the street. Aló stood near us and waited as if he had been our dog forever.

Finally the traffic stopped, and we stepped off to cross the crowded lanes. Aló didn’t look at the cars, he looked at us! He was still not quite fully grown, but he had already assimilated a critical survival rule for life in the city: If the humans feel it is safe to cross and start off, then it’s safe for a dog.

In Havana there are many more dogs on the streets than here in the US. Most dogs, owned or strays, quickly learn to trust people on crossing streets. I had an airline pilot friend who used to say, “There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots. The same saying can be applied to city dogs, and the dogs running loose on Havana’s streets are living proof.

No other species exists in the world today that is so connected to human beings. It’s far more than a mutual admiration society—there are countless examples of how humankind and dogs serve and depend upon each other.

Les Inglis