Must Love Dogs

Pompeii (new town) certainly didn’t come close to the beauty of the Amalfi Coast, nor could I possibly suggest that most places would! What we did find, was a place that appeared dirty, with crazy traffic and rubbish lying around in gutters. Most people visit here to see the ruins of Old Pompeii which was a town annihilated by a volcano (Vesuvius) in 79AD. As incredible as these ruins have been described, we just couldn’t get into it! We made a real effort, even purchasing the audio guides so we could learn about the history of this place, but we were left feeling flat and bored. I completely acknowledge that these ruins are indeed fascinating, but for us, we just couldn’t connect with the ancient history here and our fascination faded very quickly. Ok, so I think you get the picture….not one of our highlights.

What did get our attention though, was the several dogs we encountered roaming the ruins and the streets of new town Pompeii. Some were healthy and others had a limp or were looking unwell, but all of them stole our hearts! We discovered that all of them had made Pompeii their home, but none of them had official owners and you could visibly see the sadness in their eyes as they sought the attention of every passer by. One took a real liking to us and followed us for over a kilometer until we had to get into the car and leave it sitting on the kerb. Of course all I wanted to do was take this beautiful creature and give it a home, but the reality of what I was actually able to do left me feeling gutted! It was a reassuring discovery when we learned about Pompeii’s care program which provides food and veterinary care for these dogs who have made the streets of Pompeii their home. As we wandered around the new town, we saw water containers in front of businesses and we realized then, that these dogs were very much valued by the locals here. I still left there however, with the imprint of sad eyes in my head and wondering how much happier these dogs might be if they had a human companion or family to love them.