This is a resurrection of an early post to my first blogger blog. One can easily see right away upon visiting Costa Rica that ticos love their dogs. Driving through the countryside you will see dogs of all breeds and generally in well-fed and healthy condition. The exception is San Jose where like most big cities you can see dogs living in less than sanitary environs. Now cats are another thing. I am not sure why, but cats are virtually non-existent in this country. Having never been a great cat lover, this is another in the long list of reasons why I love Costa Rica. The dog in the above picture is my dog, Cash.  He is certainly tico, having been born in Heredia and spent his entire life (all 8 months or so of it) in Costa Rica.  So Cash is a “smart” dog.  I am also bringing him up bilingual.

Now more on the title of this incredibly useful and informative blog. Why do I say that Costa Rican dogs are smart, you ask? Well I am from the southern part of the U.S. Down south it is very difficult to drive 5 miles down the road without coming across what we southerners refer to as “roadkill.” This could be a possum, or a deer, but more often it is a dog (or a possum, which to some folks down south, is a dog). One of the things that struck me long ago driving through the beautiful back roads of Costa Rica is the absence of roadkill. You just don’t see it. This initial observation motivated me to become a student of the behavior of domestic animals that I encountered along the highways and byways in the course of my meanderings. Dogs in this country, my friend, simply possess a much higher degree of intelligence that their counterparts in the southern U.S. (or at least in South Carolina….as I don’t want to offend any of you dog-lovers from, say, Alabama). Maybe it is just the fact that our dogs back in the states lead more sheltered lives. I don’t know. But here dogs learn from an early age to “get out of the way” of oncoming traffic. When you visit Costa Rica be observant. Whenever you see a dog in the road, watch their reaction as the vehicle draws close. They will rather nonchalantly just get up and move out of the way so as not to disparage the pristine back roads with their dead rotting carcass. It is a wonderful thing. Maybe ICT (the tourism ministry in Costa Rica) has some sort of program underway to educate the dogs so as not to have roadkill littering the highways from Tamarindo to Jaco. Whatever the real reason for this phenomenon, I will continue to believe that dogs in Costa Rica are just plain smart.

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