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.