During my time in London with the Jetpack team from Automattic, I had the opportunity do some exploring.
One night while spending some time people watching outside of the London Shard, some colleagues and I witnessed an interesting sight, that I haven’t seen before.
A homeless woman (I’m assuming) was walking around with her pup. The dog had seemingly been trained to carry publications and look especially cute in order to butter up folks. Once the pup gained the emotional attention of passersby, the woman who was hanging back about 6 – 8 feet, would quickly walk up and ask individuals for money.
I watched the duo for about 20 minutes as they employed this extremely successful tactic, before they disappear around a corner. Of the 10 or so people / groups they encountered, 9 times they were successful. Pretty interesting to see though. I’ve never witnessed this in the states before. But I can’t help feel for the pup. I just hope it’s treated well… he sure didn’t have any use for the 2 pounds I donated…
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