60 kilometers long walk back home

Oh, my... Do I have a story to tell and I promise it is 100% true.

Let me present Leo, the leader of the pack at the Caronte & Tourist shipyard in Messina, Sicily. Leo, which is short for Leone (Lion), is a stray dog that has built up a small pack of his and their hangout is at the shipyard and where the cars get on and of the ships. Leo fits perfectly in as Cesar Millan's description of a pack leader, calm, assertive and intelligent. He makes sure his pack gets exercise, he disciplines and give affection all in the right order ;)

His pack fits rather well in to the surrounding until there is a car that gets "side-tracked". Then the dogs think it is their job to make sure that the car gets "on-track" again and, as you can imagine, the drivers usually don't appreciated this very much...

The shipping company has promised to assist Streetdog SPA in building up the dog shelter, if we take care of Leo and his 5 friends. Recently there has been some complaints, by clients who are scared of dogs, so in the meantime until Streetdog SPA gets our shelter up and running, the shipping company got in contact with a farmer that lives on the other side of the mountains. They closed a deal with him to take care of the dogs until the shelter is up and running. The dogs were placed in a small truck (food was placed in the truck and all the dogs walked in side by themselves) and they were driven to the farm.

This was done last Friday and the dogs stayed for the weekend on the country side, but on Monday they decided that they had got enough of the fresh country air and walk all the way back over the mountains and through the city of Messina until they finally reached the shipyard yesterday. They all looked well and the funniest thing (depending on which side your on) is that Leo has picked up some new friends on the way back and now they are 10 dogs.

I promise to put up some photos of them shortly and more stories of Leo and his pack will follow.

Helena