I know what you are thinking:
Travelling with a dog?? You must be crazy!
Well.. it is actually quite crazy, although I had no idea it could be that hard until I had to live it for myself for a few days. This is the story:
Yami, one of my best friends in Bogotá adopted a beautiful and amazingly well behaved female dog called Linda. My friend wanted to travel from Bogotá to the coast with the dog so I thought it would be a great experience to join them. I’ve never travelled with a dog! it sounded like trouble!! a new adventure!! I’m in!
Also, the story of the dog is amazing to say the least. Linda used to be an abandoned and misstreated street dog that was runned over by a car that threw her to the floor for almost 3 months where she ate basically nothing and lived outdoors. She couldn’t move anywhere. My friend Yami randomly ran into her in a gas station and the situation of the dog was so deplorable and shocking that she couldn’t resist to pick her up. Yami adopter her, a wild aggressive street dog, took care of her, spent a incredible amount of hours in vet hospitals and basically dedicated her time to the dog until she became the dog that is today: a beautiful and amazingly well behaved animal.
With well behaved I mean that it the best trained dog I’ve seen in my life. Lazie is a bitch! compared to Linda. She doesn’t do all the tricks a house dog would do, she doesn’t roll on her back or stands in two feet but! she can easily stay on a long bus ride without barking or trying to scape, she waits for you at the door of a store for a reasonable time, she pees and poos on the right spots and she follows you wherever you go. All of this, as I said, thanks to all the love and pieces of jam that Yami dedicated to her.
(If you want to know more about Linda, her transformation, tips to travel with your dog and whatever else you can imagine, you can follow her on facebook on this link.)
So. The goal was to get to Cartagena in 6 or 7 days. There was no fixed plan, may be just to visit Mompox but nothing else besides that. My personal goal was to stay all the time with my friend and Linda so I could learn how to deal with her and eventually try to hitchhike with the dog at some point.
The trip started!
Well.. the trip hadn’t actually started and we already had the first obstacle in front of us: Formal buses don’t allow pets on the cabin.
The bus driver stopped us and insisted that we must put the pet on the lil warehouse of the bus. We found a fragile cardboard box to put the Linda inside. It was ok for the size of Linda but she was definitely not willing to cooperate to go into the box and even less to go inside the warehouse of the bus. I don’t understand how people can put an animal on a cage on a warehouse like that for several hours. It is a 12 hour ride with the most sinuous curves on this planet.
Linda didn’t really wanted to go in there so, after unsuccessfully trying to make Linda feel comfortable in the box, my friend Yami used all his strategies to convince the driver to let her go with the dog on her legs. It might sound easy but the discussion took almost half an hour. Finally he accepted! Linda was travelling in between our feet 🙂
The most incredible part is that it is really possible. Linda behaves so well to travel that she will just stay all the time right next to my friend’s legs causing no trouble. You wouldn’t even noticed there was a dog on the bus.
Now it really started. The bus took us to Aguachica, a lil town at the beginning of the Caribbean region. Linda behaved perfectly. She didn’t barked one single time in 12 hours, obviously didn’t peed or pooed and she was all the time right next to my friend.
My friend yami was telling me she was not like that all the time. When she took Linda with her from the gas station she didn’t obeyed any instruction, she even used to get aggressive in specific situations. So with many months of practicing routines and delicious slices of jam she trained her to obey lil by lil habits and instructions a dog needs to learn in order to life with humans. (Her blog is actually a bible if you want to learn how to rehab a street dog)
We arrived to Aguachica but we didnt wanted to spend the night there, so our next step was to get to el Banco and the only way was with a jeep. We arranged the transport and went straight to El Banco. Nothing special if you don’t understand or if you don’t like de costeño culture. I actually like it a lot. Tons of loud vallenato, domino, light beer and disorder. We spent the night there and the next day we went to mompox.
You have to take another jeep to get there. It was nice and suuuperquiet. We stayed there for 3 days. Its a beautiful super old colonial town. Although, the coolest things were not the buildings. What really surprised me was the people. They were particularly friendly, even for Colombian standards. They were the smilyest town I’ve ever seen. Also, it has a cool atmosphere, it is very hard to get there, so there are almost no tourists.
Also, nature is quite beautiful there. Lagoons, rivers, tons of birds, etc. Its simply amazing.
The next day I was seeing the map on the internet and I saw San Basilio de Palenque on the way to Cartagena. Ironically, it is a very interesting town with really nothing to see. It is one of the poorest towns I’ve stepped in but what makes it interesting is its history. The town lives inside its unique culture. San Basilio de Palenque was a founded by slaves that escaped from good old Cartagena and resisted the Spanish conquistadores which gave them the title of the first free town in America. (yes, I know. If you are from the USA you might have learned that “America” was the first people in becoming independent on 1776. Well… this people declared themselves free in 1691 with the recognition of the Spanish crown).
In a few words it is a very special town. The population is mayoritary black (proper black), they have their own language (nowadays only spoken by the oldest people) and they have a rich tradition of drummers, or tamboreros. The tradition teaches men how to make and play their own drum in a fairly big variety of original rhythms.
Shit! I got super excited about it!! I should write about music more often. I’ll post some videos next time I have the chance to upload them on YouTube.
Ok. Back to the dog. All the time my friend was commanding the dog along the roads. So I was watching how she did it and asking her what she does in certain situations, how did she do to make Linda stand still, to wait for her at the entrance of a place, to make her stay quiet in cars, to feed her, etc. I wanted to be prepared for the time were I had to take the dog alone. It looked quite easy to be sincere. You say stop and Linda stops like a soldier, you say sit and she sits, you have to give her food twice a day and just be nice to her. Sure.
finally, just Linda and me.
My friend Yami had to go back to Bogotá for a congress she had to be part of so she was trusting 100% I could do a great job taking the dog to Cartagena. She reminded me all the commands, habits and how to deal many situations that could happen to Lind, etc. It wasn’t that far from where we were anyways.
Finally, Linda was totally under my responsibility. I know how much my friend loves her dog and the dog itself is quite special. I had to treat him as if Linda was my very own dog. Yami left very very early in the morning. I woke up a bit later, packed my bag including Linda’s stuff took a shower and there I was! really to hitchhike with Linda. Nothing could stop me!! Only a massive tropical rain.
It was raining like a hurricane!! It was ridiculous. Rivers of water ran on the streets. I waited for some minutes until I fell sleep, after a couple hours it was still raining so I opened my book and started to read. I was reading about rum and its role in the colonial times.. so interesting.. shit!! the dog!! It was almost midday and I forgot to give food to the dog. shit!
I took Linda’s food and poured it into her portable bowl. The measure I thought that was fair. Well.. the dog was not eating. I forgot I have to mix it with pieces of meat. I went out of the hous in the middle of the rain to buy a lil sausage, it was the most similar thing to meat I could find there. I mixed it with the food and there she was, eating her fabulous meal prepared by daddy dani. I could go back to my readings.
The rain was endless, although it wasn’t as intense as before. I couldn’t take Linda out because she would get wet and Yami literally advised that if she gets wet for too long she could get fungi easily. I waited and waited and the doggy started to be inpatient for about her first needs. The call of nature was harder and even I that don’t know Linda that well I could see she wanted to pee. She wanted to pee inside the house!! Shit!! Fortunately she is very well trained so she wasn’t even close to pee but I was almost praying so she wouldn’t poo inside the house!
The rain finally stopped and we started to go out of this town. We had to take a mototaxi to go to the main road and then a big bus to get to cartagena.
I went to the mototaxi stop and all the drivers looked at me with an eskeptic face when they saw Linda. Off course, all her legs where covered in sandy mud, she was wet, and I really wasn’t much cleaner than her. At the end I found a driver that picked us up. I grabbed Linda and putted her in my lap. It was the first time I was properly travelling with her. She was behaving perfectly. David Coperfield is nothing compared to my taming skills.
We arrived to the main road. It was time to take the next bus to the city. We walked to the stop and waited. I tried to hitchhike with the passing trucks but she was so dirty I was doing it more for fun than with an actual hope of being picked up.
The first bus stopped. I didn’t even had time to say hello. As soon as the driver saw me and Linda immediately pointed her, made a shit face and said…. not with the dog. Oh well.. I taught. The next one will take us. But no. Two more buses stopped, all the people got in except me. My friend wasn’t there to use her nice pair of female arguments to convince the drivers. I thought I was gonna get stuck in there.
Suddenly an unusually big, old bus stops. It was the most colorful bus ride I’ve ever had in my life. The bus had 3 seats on one side and 2 on the other, like a plane, except that more noisy. the music was so loud that the engine seemed a little whisper on the road. It was full but still there was space to sit. I wasn’t the only one with a big load with me. There was other people carrying sacks of corn, hens, bunches of green bananas and big sacks with who knows what.
A big old palenquera sits next to me and we start a conversation. We laughed and sang the whole trip. Linda on the floor of the bus was feeling a bit confused I think. The bus was stopping all the time to pick or leave someone so every time she tought we arrived but we didn’t, we just stopped to pick up someone with a massive sack of flour.
The day was a success, although we took the whole day we did it to Cartagena.
I realized that she was obeying every time less to my commands. I remembered my friend Yami told me she trained her with pieces of jam, so I bought a piece of sausage in order to reinforce the commands. She obeyed perfectly! but, as soon as I had no more food she lost interest. I guess you have to repeat it and repeat it many many times.
We arrive to Cartagena around 4 pm so I went to the walled city and took some pics to send to Yami so she could breathe again seeing the great father I was.
I called my host (yes, you can couchsurf with a dog too), but he was busy at work until 6 pm. I had to wait. It was really no problem. Cartagena is a beautifull glamurous colonial fortified city. I was totally prepared for it with my smelly shorts all covered in mud. Who cares anyways, the dog was by far the main attraction. Even some groups of tourist as me to take a pic of them, with the dog.
“Cómo se llama?”
“Daniel”
“No, no. The dog”
“ah… Linda!”
We stayed for a couple hours and then I went to my host’s house. I rang the bell and see Mauricio, a very nice, generous, relaxed and dog lover paisa that lifes in Cartagena since many years was our host. He invites Linda and me to come in.
He likes dogs so we started to talk about Linda and Yami. All the story.. bla bla bla. Mauricio approached to Linda but she started to bark. Inmediately, I remembered yami told me I had to introduce Linda to everyone in the house so she identifies the person as a friend. I proceded to introduce Linda to Mauricio and vice versa. Mauricio this is Linda, Linda this is Mauricio. Mauricio Approached and tried to pet her a bit but suddenly! Linda starts to growl!!!! and shows her teeth to my host. baaaaaaaaa!!! Mauricio naturally kept hid distance from the animal.
Shit! I didn’t know what to do. She has never behaved like that.
The dog I’m carrying doesn’t likes the person that is giving us his hospitality. I felt superbad. I tryed to calm linda down and she did calmed down but as soon as I got a bit apart she got aggresive again. I had no idea what to do. As yami said if u introduce her she will feel more comfortable, but this wasn’t the case. she was growling everytime someone else approached to her in the house. I was only waiting for my friend to come back
(to be continued….)
Many things learned!
– It is a bit easier to travel with a female dog than with a male dog: I was walking with my friend and the Linda on a crowded alley in el Banco. As soon as we walked though the alley, full of stores on each side, the corresponding dog came running and barking to give us the welcome. Dogs are territorial, if Linda was a male dog a fight with the dominant dog would be inminent.
– Dog bags are useless: I think dog bags make the dog look cutter but they are in my opinion quite useless, they can’t carry that much in them and they make the dog feel uncomfortable. I putted linda her dog bags and she was trying to take them off after some minutes.
– They are faithfull friends if you treat them well: I don´t know if its this dog or what but when you give food to Linda she licks your hand when she finishes. Also, she followed me everywhere I went, and I am not even the owner, I only spend a few days with her before.
– They are better wingman than most of my friends: Linda is cute and charismatic. She attracts all the girls attention very easily. I ended up talking to everyone just because of the dog.
– The biggest danger for dogs are cars: all the time, the only danger Linda faced was getting runned over by a car (again). Cars don’t care about dogs really.
– The more developed the region is and the better organized and formal the transpotation is, the harder it is to travel with a dog. Its kind of ironical because as I saw the dogs are treated worse in less developed regions, but its also more normal for them to have a dog on the seat right next to them.
– Training is the most important thing: I think it is very unlikely or impossible to travel with a dog if it is not well trained. You can risk the life of the dog, travel uncomfortably, etc.
– You create very strong sentimental ties with the animal: When I gave Linda back to my friend I felt I was gonna miss her. And I was alone with her just a few days. i think the fact of being aware of her all the times creates the tie.
In conclusion…
Travelling with a dog is an epic way of travelling. I don’t think I could do it unless I fell crazy in love with a dog I would travell with. It requires a lot of love for the animal to motivate you to dedicate so much time and patience to it.
Off course, all of this lessons wouldn’t have been possible without Yami. She has a very special charisma with Linda at least. She passed me all the instructions to deal with her the little time I had to be responsible for her. I think I would have never had all the amount of patients my friend Yami has with her dog. They really demand a lot of you specially in trying to understand why they act how they act and to find how to make them act in other way. The lack of patience and will to understand the dog’s behaviour is the main reason why dogs behave inappropiately, not only for travelling but also in your house.
Culture curious 
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