A common sight in Buenos Aires is the professional dog walkers, some with as many as a dozen dogs walking along the street. I don’t know how they keep the leashes from getting tangled, but for the most part the dogs know what they’re supposed to do and stay in order quite well — although the occasional little yapper can disrupt things quite nicely!

There are several parks and green areas that seem to be popular gathering places for the walkers and their charges.

This is Marcela. I met her on my morning walk today. I quickly snapped the first photo as I walked behind her, but when I caught up with her at the crosswalk I started to chat to her. (Vida and Patti, you should be proud of me!) She has sixteen dogs in her charge, although only twelve with her(!) Some of these ones are small and were lost among the bigger ones, but I counted them and there were indeed twelve. One of them, a black lab, belonged to her.

Interestingly, several of the dogs belonged to visitors, one from Houston and two from London, and they seemed to be fitting in nicely. I asked her if it wasn’t difficult to control so many dogs, but she said no because they get a nice long walk and then when they get to the park they are ready to lie down!

It turned out Marcela is from Salta, so I told her about my trip there a couple of weeks ago. Small world indeed.