Gringo vs. Chilean on Strays

I´m suddenly intrigued by the striking difference between how the US handles strays and how the chileans do. I came across the following exchange on a forum discussing this very topic.

Gringo
No place in Chile have I seen street dogs like you find in Mexico or Guatemala. You very rarely see their ribs showing in Chile. I have also seen neighborhoods in Santiago where all the people owned dogs, and they all took care of the street dogs in the local Park. They would invite the street dogs home for lunch and take them to the vet when they had problems. These dogs where just part of the neighborhood, and lived in the bushes. Other than that they were like any of the other dog. They even had names.

It is a political problem in that the local governments are not taking care of the public health issues of controlling street dogs. Street dogs are not on any high priority list when the real political battles are over how streets will be paved and who will pave them.

Chilan
Your opinion is basically right but makes me realize how diferent are gringo and latino view in some issues. For most of us (chileans), I guess, stray dogs are not a problem at all, they have a good life living in freedom, maybe better than some pets confined in small spaces as many chileans use to keep them.

Maybe Chile is not a poor country but many of us think that goverment money has many priorities other than take care for stray dogs, paved roads is a good example! This may explain why goverment is not to worried about street dogs.