The Dogs of Paris

The Paris Vignettes series features the inspired work of street photographer William “Bill” O’Such in themed installments

A few years ago, I saw an interesting exhibition at the Pavillon de l’Arsenal that included a lot of “stats” about Paris. One of them concerned the population of dogs and cats and which arrondissements had the highest density of each. Parisians love their pets! With the “greening” of Paris, I’m noticing more dogs, especially in the early morning (“les ours et le chien”, “marchant place de la republique”).

In our neighborhood, we have a small park (Square Georges-Cain) that is full of dogs every day: running around (“bienvenue à notre parc”), playing with each other and having a great time until they are exhausted (“bien fatigué”). At the nearby Square Léopold-Achille, following my visit to the Doisneau exhibit, I spotted by chance a dog sadly waiting to get into another park (“je suis triste”) that had a sign stating dogs weren’t allowed. I guess his owners didn’t know there was an unofficial dog park just two minutes away where dogs were frolicking freely (“joie”).

In my adventures, I even spotted a dog leaving a metro station (“sortant le metro”), though its owner followed a few minutes later. Many cafés have a few dogs quietly waiting for a treat (“j’attends”). Recently, I saw that the city is even planning designated play spaces in larger parks where dogs can run around “officially” freely off-leash. The first one I’ve seen is at Parc Monceau from 7 am to 9 am until June 30th.