Le Canines

For Lisa, who has as big of a heart for animals as anyone I have ever met.
Dogs are everywhere in France. A bit of research tho tells me that Americans have more dogs per person than France. Americans spend $60 billion a year on our pets although we have 70 million homeless dogs at any given time. Of those, only about 10 million will make it into a shelter and over half of those will never find a home and be euthanized.
Despite having fewer dogs, the dogs are highly visible. They are everywhere. Dogs on the street. Dogs are the market. Dogs in coach class on airplanes. Dogs at the mall. Dogs in restraunts. Dogs being carried in little purses by men at medieval castles. Dogs at parks and more parks. Dogs on leashes and very often not on leashes. Dogs at church. Dogs on the metro. Dogs playing soccer. No one has yards here and it is all apartment living, so dogs are out and about with their people.
My own dogs, in the (loving) care of Ashton, could be described as wild hooligans. I have once caught 50 pound Leia standing in my sink licking dirty dishes. Not the case here. I have not seen one unruly dog. When we lived in Tulsa and had a small yard and the dogs were young and energetic and we would walk them I always kept them on a tight leash around people or other dogs. Not the case here.  Dogs, if they are on a leash even, have lots of freedom to greet dogs and people alike.
The dogs are unbelievably well behaved. it has taught me that I obviously don't have high enough expectations with my own dogs. The folks here who are homeless often have pets and my google searches tell me it is for companionship but also because the cities do not have anywhere to put the dogs if the owner becomes arrested, therefore police overlook minor offenses if the person has a dog with them. I'm not sure how they are cared for, but the dogs appear well fed.
I have not seen a single stray dog. I also haven't seen any dog whose breed wasn't apparent to me, making me think that mutts and accidental puppies are not a big problem in Toulouse. I assume that in the more rural areas dogs are less pampered and there are issues with strays and what not, as France is not one of the "100% no kill" countries, so they do have unwanted pets here as well.
The dogs make me miss my own Pike and Leia, who are lucky they're too old to learn new tricks because France has taught me dogs can be better behaved than my kids (but I have seen those therapy dogs. I already knew that).