In addition to working with dogs, one of my favorite things to do is travel. When I can combine the two, even better.

Recently, I had the pleasure of spending a week-plus in western France. The trip took us from Seattle to Istanbul (more on that in a minute) and then to Bordeaux. From there we made our way up to Paris. During the whole trip I was on the lookout for Franco Fidos.

Let’s start with Istanbul. Being a mostly Muslim culture, they have some issues with dogs. One of our tour guides was explaining that dogs are considered unclean. So, if someone has done one of their multiple daily ablutions but then touches a dog, they have to start all over and do it again. (They also have to do this if they touch a woman who is not their wife, so there’s that.) Because of this opinion on dogs, we did not see any. I mean, none. In Western culture, you’ll see dogs everywhere, even in art from way back in history. In Istanbul, nada.

They did have lots of cats though. Cats were everywhere and it appeared that they were often cared for pretty well even though they were mostly what we would call strays.

France was a very different experience. We’ve been there multiple times and dogs are a huge part of their culture.

Below, you will find pictures of dogs we spotted in parks, playgrounds, and paintings.