The Beautiful Street Dogs of Tangier

Packs of gentle dogs and the amazing woman behind it all

Arriving in Tangier and crossing the street.

I came to Tangier, Morocco alone and unprepared late one night.

It was stressful.

I needed cash to pay for my hostel room which I didn’t have.

I was hungry and didn’t know where to get cash or where to get food.

There was a quiet young guy from the US in the lobby of the hostel. He offered to show me where to get food and cash.

I was grateful because it was almost midnight and I didn’t want to deal with GPS in a foreign language, walking around a new country in the dark.

NOTE: I’m willing to do that and have done it, but oh it is so sweet to have help late at night.

How to cross a street and not die

The young American guy showed me how to cross the street, which I didn’t expect to need to learn!

Here’s the deal: in Morocco you just walk right into the street with your hand up to stop cars.

No crosswalks (or they are ignored). It’s just you and the cars in a kind of free-for-all.

(I got used to this, sort of, after a couple of months. Actually, I didn’t. I wouldn’t cross busy streets by myself and would hold hands with a friend if we were together. I saw other people doing this, too, actually. So maybe I wasn’t a total wimp…)

After teaching me how tocross a street without dying, the American guy and I shared a meal while talking traveler-talk:

He filled me in on what he learned about Moroccan customs and tipping (not usual) and I told him about being a nomad for 5 years.

I love these meetings with random slow travelers.

We are often different in age, background and style but we have the common connection of curiosity about the world and interest in new experiences.

And we learn valuable intel about new cultures and places.

The Beach and The Dogs

First thing in the morning I headed to the city beach to get some calm vibes at the ocean.

But what I saw first didn’t fill me with calm. I saw a bunch of dogs hanging around at the entrance.

I ignored them at first…a few walked up to me so I was forced to pay attention.

I slowly realized they didn’t have any people!

Should I be afraid? Take precautions?

I walked on and watched them carefully.

One started to follow me but not aggressively, so I let it be.

He came along with me to the shore and sat down when I sat down.

He ended up being my friend.

Here he is:

This guy was like my personal rent-a-dog for a while!

He sat by me, wanted some pets, and watched out for me.

At least that is what I imagined when he lay down near my feet, facing out and scanning the beach with ears up and alert.

How could this be?

A pack of dogs running ‘wild’ yet ok with humans? Not causing trouble?

I didn’t understand until much later.

A street dog in the Medina

Another dog incident happened late at night in the Medina (the old city center).

I had a bad stomach one night so went for a walk to sit on the terrace overlooking the sea.

(It is safe to walk alone at night in Tangier in most areas, even as a single female.)

And this surprised me. It’s safer than most cities I have lived in. A heck of a lot safer than New Orleans (sadly).

This beautiful creature came up and sat at my feet:

He eventually got up on the bench where I sat, curled up right next to me, touching my leg.

We sat like that for quite a while, a gentle communion under the stars.

The Street Dog Guardian Program - Yellow Tags

Pedro in the main square of Gran Socco

I finally got the answer about these dogs living in the streets, literally part of the community.

There must be hundreds of them. I saw many every day in the old city center, on the beach and in other parts of town.

Perla sleeping next to the marble fountain in Gran Socco

The SFT Animal Sanctuary has a program that takes a stray dog and vaccinates, neuters and tags their ears, and then finds and assigns a guardian.

The guardian (a local) is responsible for feeding them.

So the dogs have a kind of home turf and know where they belong.

Rzala (means ‘beautiful’). I passed her often on this street just outside the Medina, in front of her shop.

SFT was created by, and is still run by, Sally.

She is a local woman who grew up seeing the suffering of the street dogs and decided to do something some years ago.

Now the sanctuary houses 700 dogs, a hundred cats, donkeys and other animals on the outskirts of Tangier.

And Sally created and and is stilling running the street dog program.

Rocky lives in the Kasbah area of the Medina

These street dogs have names and Sally knows all of them!

She knows their names because she named them.

She personally rescues them from the street and puts them back after being tagged and prepared.

This is the level of her commitment and love.

Dogs hanging out at night on the main plaza at Gran Socco. This is a busy area night and day. They cause no problems.

Two dogs at my feet and one trying to get some petting!

I wrote an article about my visit to the SFT Sanctuary with 700 dogs. The link is at the end of this post.

I leave you with this last photo, which captures the gentle nature of the dogs and cats in Tangier and now they are part of the community.

Two dogs and a cat on a busy street that I often passed. Someone has put cat food out for this street cat.