This one is different. Even though we know he is different, we still approach with caution. For all we know it could be some trick the clever ones use to bag a victim and impress their owner. His gate is wide open and he ambles over. He fixes me with gentle eyes and slowly and steadily lowers his rear to the ground, all the while not letting his gaze falter, keeping his eyes and head perfectly still, like a Kestrel hovering in the wind. He is white with brown patches behind each ear. He looks something like a Jack Russell. He waits.
Later, the road gently curves around the mountain. Olive trees with gnarly trunks grow on either side. Fennel, Brambles and Tree of Heaven saplings burst from the verges. A pack of stray dogs appear in the distance trotting toward us. We need to follow this road to get back before the sun is too hot to run, so we can't turn back. They are like a children’s cartoon ensemble: a lanky, dopey one lopes past first, then a short fat one with legs whirring; then a cheerful one with tail wagging; then a lean, strong leader with chin stuck out and a bouncy trot, and finally two lazy ones at the back grumbling to each other about the early start. They eye us up as we pass but they keep to their side of the road and we to ours. After we've passed they nervously scuttle to the middle of the road and turn to watch us on our way. Perhaps they were more scared than us: these strays aren't tough enough to make the grade as guard dogs but they are canny enough to cut a living halfway up an Italian mountainside. Deeper in the mountains wolves would make short work of them, so they can't stray too far from the world which found them wanting.
Further on a fence rattles and shakes, and a thudding, deep bark echoes up to the distant quarries where travertine is drawn from the mountain. Behind a fragrant hedge of flowering Jacaranda, Oleander and Passion Flower the Alsatian snarls. Were we to hop over to taste the plums, figs and tomatoes growing in the garden beyond the dog we wouldn't come back out alive.
These dogs don’t get walked or socialised with other dogs, they don’t play or explore - it would soften them up. The towns here are not affluent and many burglaries are attempted in the countryside and so these dogs have one job: to defend property. To not have a fierce guard dog is to risk having your life’s possessions swept off to Naples to be sold in some sweaty street market.
One that looks just like a White Retriever with a innocent pleading in his eyes and only three working legs hops over. He is on his own: not just rejected from his previous life as a guard dog but also by the packs of strays. He is all naïve friendliness, no edge to his character. He would make the perfect companion. He follows gamely in the hope that now we are his new pack, that we will stick together from now on. He hops along behind us for a kilometre, but eventually we turn a corner and look behind us and he doesn’t reappear. He will try again tomorrow and the next day and the one after that and never grow cynical or bitter.
The small white one wags his tail when I summon the courage to approach him and give him a scratch behind his ears. It was the right decision - he is not here to scare me away, and nor does he hope to be adopted. He is out on the road to politely introduce himself to passing runners. He tumbles over for a belly rub.
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