Introducing Sam

Meet Sam, a shy, 3 year old brown mutt who in this photo is seen lounging outside a shop in the Chinatown district of Bangkok. He's a quiet fellow, but there's a lot of thinking going on inside that canine cranium.

Sam has been sitting in front of the same shop in Chinatown since he was a pup, content to watch life pass by in the busy way it often does in that part of the capital. It's noisy, dusty, hot, and smoky sometimes, but it never seems to bother Sam or interrupt his thoughts.

If Sam looks a little forlorn here, that's because he just broke up with his girlfriend, Rosie, a 2 year old grayish mutt who I never liked much anyway. I wasn't surprised when she broke my buddy's heart, and I tried to warn him, but hey, sometimes the toughest lessons you have to learn all by yourself.

Anyway, I'm meeting up with Sam later and we're going to head out to the Klong Toey market to tip over a few trash cans and hopefully feast on whatever edible scraps we can find. I don't know of a better way to lift a friend's spirits than to snuffle through some fresh garbage together.