Meet Sausage, The Riot Dog: Adding A Dose Of Cuteness To Greek Protests

It seems like a fake news clip from a Disney movie, but this report on Loukanikos (“Sausage” in English), a stray dog that has popped up alongside protesters in Greece, seems to be very real. And pretty awesome:

If this looks familiar, it’s because Greece apparently has a long history of stray dogs siding with protesters: it was covered extensively in 2008 and 2009. But what makes this story interesting again is that it appears that this isn’t the same dog as three years ago. And, come on, it’s a dog helping protesters! Peter Graff and Renee Maltezou of Reuters write:

There he is, yelping with delight as the youths start hurling chunks of paving stones, barking his admonition at a cordon of cops fending off petrol bombs, sneezing as he scampers through the tear gas.

The stray dogs in Greece are fed, neutered, and implanted with a microchip (seriously) by officials. There’s no reason given why Sausage has been running alongside protesters, but there has been some confusion about his identity. While Reuters says that Sausage is also known as Kanellos (“Cinnamon”), that designation is likely wrong. The folks at KnowYourMeme.com say that these are two separate riot dogs. Kanellos, according to the RebelDog tumblr account, died in 2008.

“He lived a long and free life.”

Before the Cinnamon/Sausage argument starts getting out of hand, it’s probably wise to just admire the story for what it is: a dog running around with protesters. Again. It’s just a cool little thing. And whether it’s just one dog, or a group of many similar ones wearing the same colored dog collar (like a canine version of the “Amigos, Amigos, Amigos” stunt that saved the village in The Three Amigos), expect to see more of Sausage in the near future. Because if these riots have no real end in sight, there’s no reason for Sausage to stop running around in the middle of them.