By Richard Beale ….
On Sunday July 2nd there was a small ceremony to release a street dog named ‘Barney’ back into Esentepe community life.
Barney is a stray and has been a part of Esentepe village square life for a couple of months, where he is often seen playing with other dogs and mingling with locals on the village green.
He is a beautiful and very friendly Labrador puppy probably a brother to Bouncer (see Bouncer’s Legacy on Facebook) around 9 months old. He gets fed by by locals, the Butcher, Rob Astley, (TRNC dog whisperer} and Expats Mary and Art Watson.
He has been happy as Larry but unbeknown to him a dastardly dark plot was afoot as certain people wanted to chop off his bits to stop him enjoying himself – spoilsports!
Rob, as part of his programme of vaccinating and neutering local stray dogs, got together with Art and Mary to fund Barney’s innoculations and for him to have the “chop”. This was done last week and he recuperated at Mary and Art’s house minus his gonads and deservedly received first class treatment from them.
So on Sunday, it was planned to release him back into village life, which we did, where he had a little run, sniff, cocked his leg a few times and promptly ran straight back to Art and Mary! …………….(he knows where his bread is buttered !)
Freedom! – Barney back to life on Esentepe’s village green
He will eventually settle back down to life on the village green, he is of free spirit and loves his freedom but he also knows his way to Art and Mary’s house for any food on offer! He will play with the other dogs, but it is nice to know that he has been vaccinated, and is free of mites and ticks. Though he won’t be happy about it, he won’t be able to produce any offspring and in the long term that’s got to be a good thing.
