A "poopy walk" through the eyes of my dog Nadi.

This is a ritual that we go through twice every day my dog and I. We have taken the same path in the morning for so long that if it wasn't for the traffic, I think I could just open my door and she would follow this exact path and return back at the condo after she made the rounds and put a little bit of pee pee on all the things that belong to her.

It isn't the most beautiful walk but it is the one that we have done for years now. I don't really even need to guide her, because she knows where we are going to go.

There aren't many useable sidewalks in Da Nang because almost all of them are used for car and motorbike parking lots, or the businesses set up chairs outside on the sidewalk. I have been told that this process is actually illegal on their part but they pay the police to let them do it. I don't see the point of even making sidewalks at the city's expense if it is just going to get taken over by bars, restaurants and motorbikes, but I don't make the rules.

We carry on down this same road that is right next to a gigantic church complex because there is some semblance of shrubbery here for her to sniff and poo poo in. Nadi is actually a very polite pooper and this is why I don't pick up her poos, unless she has no choice she will always park her little furry butt in the direction of the plants and do her business there. She never poos on the sidewalk. In this city I don't really like the idea of putting poos into a plastic bag anyway because the way I look at it between the bugs, sun, and rain a turd will be gone in 24 hours but if you put it in a plastic bag it is going to sit in a landfill or the ocean for hundreds of years.

There is a recently made shortcut that goes between the condos and leads us to this place, but we only use it on the way back to my neighborhood. She loses all interest in using the bathroom in this corridor and I didn't train her to do this. Like most dogs, she would much rather mark her territory on plants and of course fire hydrants.

Nadi owns all of the trees that are on my street and you can get an idea from these pictures about how the motorbikes take over the sidewalk

Most of the tires on these cars that are regularly parked on this street also belong to Nadi but sometimes some of the other dogs in the neighborhood come by and try to claim them as their own. This obviously cannot be allowed so Nadi has to remind the other dogs that these tires in fact belong to her.

All the construction site entrances also belong to Nadi and she visits them daily to make sure that everyone understands that this is the case. She spends a lot of time in the dirt making sure that everyone is aware that this is her property and of course this makes her hair a mess. I don't mind. We have a ton of wet wipes at home that I treat her ears and face with at the end of the walk.

Nadi only knows a few words but the phrase "poopy walk?" will get her really excited. She loves going on these things and I think it is one of her favorite parts of her day. We only go for a couple of km's but this is a really long way when your legs are only 4 inches long. When we do return from the walk she is more than ready to lie back down and go to sleep.

We have a lot of comfy places for her to do just that and she takes full advantage of them. I love how easy it is to keep a dog happy. While us humans complain about having to walk hither and tither, a dog likes to do this more than anything else. It doesn't even matter to Nadi that we go the same way every single day for years... for her, each trip is a brand new adventure. I hope that if the Buddhists are correct that I am reincarnated as a 6kg Shih-Tzu with an owner like me :)