This Day Is for the Dogs

The day started off like no other. I woke up to my alarm, sat up in bed and turned on the nightstand lamp. I hadn't put my glasses on yet and out of the corner of my eye, I saw something emerging from under the nightstand. At first, I thought it may have been a little bug, but it kept going and going, like a train emerging from a tunnel, slinking along all hugged up against the floorboard as if it were trying to stay as far away from me as I was from it.  I shrieked and took a moment to collect myself in the middle of the bed.  

Once I felt a little braver, I turned to get off the other side of the bed so I wouldn't encounter the multilegged insect and could escape from the bedroom.  Well, the millipede must have been thinking the same thing, because, sure enough, it had moved to the opposite side of the bed too and was there desperately trying to make its way across the floorboard to get away from the giant two-legged mammal that makes high-pitched shrieking noises from way up high. So I hopped of the original side of the bed, threw on some clothes and headed out the door so I could go for a walk and try to get my morning back on track.

I walked out of my building determined to make my day better from the terror I encountered.  I got not more than 30 feet away when a dog started barking and running toward me.  It was the same dog that had growled at me when I had gone out for walks earlier in the week. I remember him because he was all black except for a strip of white that ran from his chest to belly and white feet like socks, similar in color pattern to some cats I've had in the past.  This piebald terror also recruited his sandy-colored friend to join with him in barking and running after me.  I don't play around with dogs; I don't like them (no offense, Jonesy). If anyone was up early enough in the morning to watch this, I'm sure they would have thought it was hilarious, but that incident embodied the culmination of an already disappointingly difficult week and I ran back to my apartment building and had a good cry for all the frustrations and trials I had been experiencing so far in India. 

After I collected myself together, I thought back to my morning walks earlier in the week and remembered that I had noticed quite a few people walking with sticks and the signs I had seen warning people about keeping their kids away from stray dogs. I had really paid these warnings no mind because 100% of the dogs I had encountered heretofore ignored humans or seemed scared of them (now because of those two dogs, my unofficially and scientifically derived statistic is 99.5%).  I put all the obvious puzzle pieces together and realized why the other people on their morning walks were carrying those sticks and that I, as an adult, should also beware of the dogs.

That incident made me be more observant of the dogs around me and I was curious about why there are so many around.  Apparently there are laws about spaying stray dogs to reduce the population, but there are other laws that counteract these laws and, in effect, nullify them by causing no action to be done. These are just reasons for the status of the current stray dog situation and I'm neutral as to what should legally be done.  I do feel bad for the dogs though, because some of them are injured or bear scars of what must've been very violent dog fights.  And something that causes me to shudder in pain is seeing the female dogs with severe mastitis and it makes me wonder how they are still alive walking around.  (Yes, there is a WebMD site for pets! Now pet parents everywhere can look up medical symptoms for their pets and scare themselves half to death with worse-case scenarios, just like they can when looking up their own symptoms!)

I've only seen a few dead dogs in all of my trips to India. One was roadkill in Agra, the other was recently here in Jodhpur. I thought it was really strange that the dog was wet and sleeping in a puddle of water with its head resting on its forepaws.  I said this to my friend who was walking with me and she said: "वह मर गया। (Woh mar gaya)", "It died". Then I noticed that there were flies lighting on the dog and the water was probably meant to dissuade them until someone came to dispose of the body.

In the US and other countries, animals suffer a lot of abuse, maltreatment and neglect, not to mention the species that are lost because of what human activity is doing to the environment. Humankind is supposed to look after and care for the animals, but we are doing a terrible job of it today. I look forward to the time when we will care for them properly so they can thrive.

  

This is Jonesy, he's generally docile unless it's a mail carrier, Amazon, or UPS.  He's scared of angering the reigning cats and only stands up to them when it comes to food.  If only all dogs were like him. This is what he looks like when he's begging for food.