Savannah Update

I have been leaving food almost every day for the mother dog and her friend, the black and white dog.  After that day when I saw the dark puppy with the vagrant, I never saw either of her puppies again.  I am hoping that somebody rescued them - somebody who will be kind to them, but they could have died too.  I am sorry I did not try harder to catch them. If I didn't have Rescue with me, I am sure they would have come with me the day that I saw them playing together, so when I dropped Rescue off and went back down, I should have at least taken the one that was with the vagrant, instead of waiting to get them all together. Wudda, shudda, cudda.

I had not seen the mother dog for several days and had just about decided that she was gone too, but I still left food nearly every day under a tree near to where I last saw her, in case she was still around.  Today when I went, I saw her and her friend, but they ran off as soon as they saw me - it seems that she has gotten just as timid as the black dog and no amount of whistling and calling could get them to even slow down in their dash away from me.  I left food, but I don't even know if they get the food that I leave because there are so many other dogs and birds and even hungry humans in the savannah.  I went back this afternoon, and most of the food was gone, but so were they.

A friend whose father was a public health inspector in the 1950's told me that there were few stray dogs in Port of Spain in those days because the PHIs used to feed them - with poisoned bait.  She said they used to call her father the Dog Hitler.  As if I am not upset enough about the situation with the dogs these days, now I have something else to depress me.

We (Aslan and I) were charged this afternoon by the Savannah Pack - there are eight of them now, but they were just grandstanding - which is ironical when you think of it, because the "attack" happened not far from the Grand Stand being put up for Carnival.  Even Aslan could tell they weren't serious, and he was practically steupsing at them.  I told the one leading the charge to just stop his foolishness and he twitched his ears once or twice and then turned and walked away, and that was that. 

I saw two new dogs in the savannah.  One was a brown, very thin, male who looked like he might be just out of puppyhood.  He was alone in a part of the savannah where there were absolutely no people at all.  He started to come towards us and then thought better of it, and ran off.

I saw the other one when Asland and I were sitting on one of the benches after our walk.  This really nice brown dog trotted up to us, totally unafraid.  He (or she, I didn't notice) is reddish brown, long haired, and has a small head and long, slim face - something like a greyhound.  He headed off towards the zoo side of the savannah, stopping to greet almost everybody on his way - which was a lot of people seeing that this is the month before Carnival and the savannah is crowded.  Most people shooed him away. It was a little irritating to see one woman in particular practically running away from this dog - if he was any more gentle and friendly he would have been a rabbit and she was terrified of him! I hope he does not decide to go into the road as he will probably get knocked down.

I have been thinking about these savannah dogs and what is best for them.  Could they be rescued? Should they be rescued? A few of them are friendly and will probably allow themselves to be taken to the TSPCA.  Most of them will run like the dickens if you try to get near to them, so it is possible I won't be able to catch them - so what next? A dog's needs are shelter, food and water, health care and companionship.  The dogs in the pack certainly have companionship and seem generally carefree.  They can get water from the ponds in the Rock Gardens.  As long as it does not rain, there are lots of trees for them to shelter under - I am not sure what they do when it rains though.  Food and health care are the big problems.  If those could be solved I would not worry about them.  The dogs in the pack are thin, but they are not emaciated, so they must be getting some nourishment. It is the loners that I worry most about because they are thinner, generally more sickly and obviously traumatised.  I have to think of a solution - food and health care for the pack, and rescuing for the loners.

Blue Flash Bulbs

Anybody remember blue flash bulbs?   You had to put them in a little box on the camera each time you wanted to take a picture or in a little hand held thingy that you held close to the camera (you needed three hands to take a picture in those days). They created a hell of a flash that left everybody seeing stars for hours afterwards.  And they made a popping noise and got quite hot too, so you had to be careful when you were taking them out to put in another one. A big innovation was when they created flash bulbs that came in packs of 4 or 6, and you just snapped the whole lot of them into the holder and didn't have to change after each shot.  The bulbs were incased in blue plastic squares. 

I had a Polaroid camera that took pictures that, when they popped out of slot, were blank and then developed in front of your eyes. Pictures that I took with regular film have since faded and become discoloured, but those Polaroid shots are as crisp as the day I took them, although people had warned me not to buy the camera because they said the pictures would disappear the same way they appeared. Good thing I never listen to people.  The flash bulbs for the Polaroid camera used to crackle after they were used and I always thought they looked so pretty that I wished I could think of something to make with them.

When cameras started to be made with something called "a built in flash" it was the height of sophistication in technology.  Now there are people using cameras who have never even seen a flash bulb - blue or otherwise.

New Savannah Dog

There's a new dog in the savannah - black and white, medium size, Trini Hound.  He or she was near to the Eastern side, the side with the Magnificent Seven. When I saw him he was pacing back and forth from the edge of the savannah into the savannah a few hundred feet and then back to the edge again - his nose to the ground the whole time - over and over.  It was like if he was desperately looking for something.  I guess that area might have been the last place he saw his owners, so he thinks he can find them again if he looks hard enough.

I passed him and then left food as usual for the mother dog under the tree before continuing on my usual walk with Aslan.  We usually make a meandering loop and end back where we start, so on my way back I checked the food dish.  Most of the food had been eaten.  Just after passing the tree with the food, I saw him again, not too far from where I had first seen him.  This time he was lying down on a cricket pitch.  And near to him was the mother dog I have been tracking.  When he saw Aslan, he ran off, but she held her ground.  Whenever she sees us, she stops whatever she doing and stares at us.  It is like she is contemplating whether to approach us, or waiting for us to approach her.  Of course, I can't with Aslan because he gets too excited, so I walked on.  But I kept my eye on them and saw him come trotting back when we were safely away, and then both of them went towards the tree with the new dog leading.

He was moving swiftly, like he knew where he was going, not waiting for her.  But she followed him anyway.  I thought they might have stopped to eat the rest of the food, but they went straight on and after a while I could not see them anymore.

I hope they become friends.  At least she won't be alone anymore, and neither will he.  I have not seen her puppies in days and I think they are either dead or somebody picked them up.  I hope the two of them get rescued too. 

But they have to watch out for the guard dogs that are now near to the construction site for the North Stands being put up for Carnival.  I don't get the deal with those dogs.  There are 4 or 5 dogs - 3 of whom are in a a kennel divided into 3 tiny compartments and two of whom are tied outside.  I would be willing to bet my next pension cheque that there is no water for them, and they are there for the whole day.  The area used to be fenced, but they recently moved the fence to the "Drag" - so what happens in the night?  Are they let loose? Or do they remain there, tied and penned up day and night?

Everybody knows when dogs do something wrong and everybody has something to say about it.  But nobody says anything about the institutionalized and everyday animal abuse that takes place in this country every minute of every day. After all, it's just a dog!  So what if you leave the animals in a pen they can hardly turn around in, in temperatures nearing 100 degrees, without water (and by the looks of them, not much food either) - they are just dogs!

And those dogs are an accident waiting to happen.  They are clearly aggressive - at least towards other dogs - and if they get lose somebody might get hurt. And then every newspaper will be howling about killer dog pit bulls and the police will come with their big guns and shoot them like, well, dogs.