Dogs (aka Shen!)

Haiti has already reaffirmed my faith in one of my previously held beliefs:

Dogs domesticated themselves.

Haiti might be full of wandering goats, cattle, roosters, and such but it is also full of dogs. And these aren't German shorthairs, poodles, or spaniels. They aren't even the Heinz 57 variety. They are truly just...dogs.
And yet, they are the exact same here as they are in America as they are in Belgium.
The Valdemas have 5 dogs residing in the compound: one looks like a mangy Chow, another like a large terrier, another...well dog, and two others which look like they must have had a German Shepard great-grandfather. One of them has one ear flipped up all the time: I have decided to name in Scooby.
And the routine is the same:
Pere Val wakes up and goes outside at 7am (sound familiar dad?) and feeds them and they bark and howl and get all rilled up...and then silence as they feast.
During the day when they get bored chasing each other around the yard, they start barking at the neighboring dogs to start up a conversation.
And like all other dogs, they greet you as you come in through the front gate and get out of the car, tails wagging.
And like all other dogs, they sit in the kitchen, waiting for any scraps to fall.

But perhaps the most striking shared traits amongst all canine are these:
Their tail always wags
They always carry a slight smile (even if they are drinking water from the street which is likely full of sewage and cholera)
And they are all lazy as hell— Sure Haiti might be hot, but dogs wander around the courtyard of the church and collapse as if shot out of sheer exhaustion. Their trek across the yard as obviously been too laborious.

So dogs domesticated themselves 8,000 years ago. Seems unlikely but plausible.
Or perhaps this:

God truly designed one species of creature to be in a symbiotic relationship with us.
We are the clown fish and they are the anemones. We feed them, clean them (in some countries), play with them. And they give us loyalty, affection, protection, and companionship.
What more could man have asked for?

The Valdemas' dog: Bola