Dead Dog
Pompeii is overrun with dogs. A few are wild, but most are cared for by the site's
custodian-caretakers. Before 1980 when the dog population got too large the Custodi
would just shoot them. Then a law was passed protecting the animals from such cruelty.
So Pompeii is filled with dogs - but no cats.
One dog must have been accidentally locked into the House of the Vestals at the end
of the previous summer's tourist season. It died and was preserved by Pompeii's dry
air. Not much of a mascot for sweaty archaeologists.
![[Dessicated dead dog.]](dog.gif)
Thankfully it didn't smell. We walked around it all summer.
Copyright © 1995
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