Unless you’ve traveled to other developing countries you might not know about some of the animals there. I hate to post about anything negative but there’s a harsh reality about dogs in Jamaica that probably won’t sit well with you, especially if you’re a dog-lover.

Picture of a dog in Jamaica

All the dogs I’m picturing in this post are pets of people in Jamaica, but the sad truth is that the mass majority of dogs there are stray and no one owns them. They are not healthy and its not a good idea to pet the ones in the street due to their poor health and whatever they might be infested with.

Its also not a good idea to approach the street dogs since you don’t know what their temperament will be like. Its not like a stray dog you might find at home, who’s probably used to humans and at one time had a home. There’s not much for pet population control in Jamaica and most of the dogs are born in the streets and stay there until …… I don’t even want to say it.

Jamaicans think its weird that us foreigners keep dogs in our homes and sometimes in our beds and on our furniture. IF a Jamaican happens to own a dog, its a yard dog and it never enters the house. It gets fed table scraps, and in rare cases it actually gets dog food. And they can be friendly and affectionate like any other pet dog. But still they probably don’t have veterinary care and it just remains a yard dog.

I have my own dog back home and she’s treated like one of the family, spoiled to death as one would expect. That’s why it breaks my heart to see all the street dogs in Jamaica, hanging around garbages and supermarkets to catch a scrap of food for the day. My first instinct is to throw it some food but they advise against it or the dog won’t stop following you. Another heart breaker is occassionally you’ll see one dead in the street, most likely hit by a car.

Like I said, I HATE to post something negative and sad but its a reality in Jamaica and it’s good to be prepared. Its hard to ignore the street dogs because we know them as good natured, loyal and affectionate animals.

These are my FAVORITE subjects to photograph in Jamaica….the people.  You can see the first installment of solo images by CLICKING HERE. All these photos are people I know and capture the Jamaican spirit and way of life so nicely.

Pondering by the water.

This next one was our driver Leon, chilling out on a hot afternoon with a cold Red Stripe. What a better way to spend an afternoon!

Next is a very good friend of mine who lives and breathes dancing in all forms. One of his favorite things to do is balance on ANYTHING he can find. This was just one of those moments I had my camera in hand and ready.

And this last one was taken in Spanish Town at the family yard. The amazing thing is it was taken by a 6 year old girl, this man’s step-daughter. I was letting her play around with my camera in the yard and only a handful of the photos she took were worth saving LOL. This one is priceless….perfect.

Another re-post from the lost posts of July. This was such a cute and funny story I wanted to put it back up.

On a day I was going from Negril to Ocho Rios we got stuck in some super heavy traffic on the highway. We moved at a crawl for a good long while near Runaway Bay and I thought for sure it was an accident. There are some pretty crazy accidents on Jamaican roads and I wondered what we’d see as we approached. Eventually we were crawling right beside the sea wall and there were literally hundreds of people stopped and gathered on the wall looking out onto the water. My first thought was “Oh God don’t tell me a car went over the wall!”

Crowd and traffic at sea wall

My driver decided to ask someone out the window what was going on and the guy just replied “sea cow”. What? So I asked my driver if that’s what he actually said and he confirmed “sea cow”. I pretty much laughed and asked him to explain to me what is a sea cow LOL. He simply said its a cow that lives in the sea. I didn’t even contain my laughter, I thought that sounded ridiculous and the first thing that came to my mind was the Loch Ness monster haha!

He asked if I would like to stop and get out to look. Of course I wanted to! And….this is pretty much all I could see. A bunch of people and a big ocean with nothing in it.

So I stood there for about 20 minutes looking out to see the big attraction and ONCE….only once I saw something about a billion miles away pop its head out the surface of the water. It was so far away no one could ever know what it was but all these Jamaicans seemed all riled up about it! It was so entertaining! There was one point where a whole bunch of Jamaicans stopped watching the sea cow and just watched me, maybe because I was the only white person there? So I pointed out to the water and said “Look…a sea cow!” LOL

We left the scene eventually and reached Ocho Rios. It wasn’t til I returned home and wrote my trip report that someone told me a sea cow is actually a Manatee. What a let-down! I was hoping for something MUCH more mystical LOL!!

Picture of a Manatee