Yesterday I was in the grocery and this man was bringing two young children through the door "to find granny". The automatic door started to close after they passed through and the children panicked - one started to fight to get away from his father and both were screaming, clearly terrified that the door would shut on them, even though they were nowhere close enough for that to happen. It was clear that they were not used to automatic doors and I thought - that is exactly what happens to dogs when you don't socialize them. When you take them out in public they are frightened because everything is new and, as my mother used to say, they behave like neversee-comefuhsee. The lesson here is - if you don't want your dogs (and your children) to embarrass you, make sure they get used to all kinds of situations and experiences.
Earlier, when I got to the grocery, I had seen the children in the backseat of a car in the parking lot. Their daddy was off to one side, smoking a cigarette, and just as I passed their car I heard him tell them to “come go and fine allyuh granny”. He was speaking in that loud, self conscious way that adults who are not used to dealing with children have. It was interesting to see granny’s reaction when he brought them to her – she steupsed. The older child was put in the seat in her grocery cart and the younger one immediately started to slam the cart against the side of the meat chiller – both hoarsely screaming in delight at the same time. I stopped to speak with granny for a minute and saw that they were not at all shy – just rambunctious. Daddy disappeared and returned with a second cart which he put the little one in. Then for some reason, he decided to put them both in the same seat. Inevitably, the older one (a child of about 5, dressed in a pair of jockey shorts and singlet and nothing else) immediately got stuck because any idiot could have seen there was not enough room for both of their little legs, and started to scream in a voice that could shatter glass. His little brother, similarly dressed and maybe a year or 18 months younger, joined in – more in support of his brother’s discomfort than anything else. Granny said with a sigh to the people near to her who could hear above the uproar that this was exactly why she tell de faddah to lef de chillren ouside.
And again I could not help but compare the handling of the children to the handling of animals in this country. People who should not have high energy, young dogs seem to be exactly the ones who have them. You see it all the time – somebody who is away a lot leaves their Pit Bull or Boxer or Malinois for the maid or their mother to see about. This person does not have the knowledge or the energy to deal with the dog and when the dog does something bad it is punished. But the treatment that caused the bad behaviour does not change. Or you have these doggy parents who really should take classes in dog behaviour before being allowed to own any dog. Although they might provide the necessities for the dog, they alternatively neglect or ignore issues like obedience training or socialization, and still expect the dog to be model canine citizens.
But in this country, it is not easy to be a good doggy parent. It seems like the whole country is in cahoots to prevent an owner from doing the right thing by his or her animal. Take this morning for instance. My youngest puppy has only one more inoculation to go which she will get at the end of the month, so it is time to start the socialization process with her. One big issue is that she is the only dog I have ever had who hates to drive in the car. She whines and cries the whole time. So my job is to show her that car drives are really nice things, and one way to do that is to make our destination the pay off. She has shown, also unlike all my other dogs, a strange liking for water, so I thought that I could combine the two and take her, by car, to a beach for a little run. I did not want to overwhelm her so I chose a nearby beach that does not usually have many people on it. I think the reason not many people go to it is because the people who do leave it in a mess. But I wasn’t interested in aesthetics, so off we went.
When you park, there is a KFC to the side. Then there is a little walk in under almond trees to the water. The beach is really a thin strip of mixed sand and stone and usually has a generous mixture of flotsam and discarded junk on it. At one time some construction (other than from the building of the KFC) took place on the beach, and there is a beach wall and life guard booth, both that were never finished, and pathways that now need clearing of water and mud. Much of the surrounding land is muddy and dug up.
As soon as we arrived, I started to feel uncomfortable. A security guard was sitting on the ledge around the KFC building and he started long and hard at the puppy. I started back, silently daring him to say something. He didn’t, so we walked in to the beach and started to walk along it. The puppy was half afraid, half curious – running ahead and then darting back to the safety of my leg. We approached a man with two children, and the puppy nosed curiously up to them, or as close as her leash would allow her to go. The man jumped to his feet, “hold dat dog, hold dat dog”. I tried to reassure him that she was only a puppy – which was obvious to anybody if for no other reason than her size. “Puppy? Look at dem teeth oui!” We next came to a woman and a teenaged boy, then two men, even a couple in the water and it was all the same – people moving away, people steupsing, people telling me what they would do if my dog bit them.
I feel like I am part of a very small minority of animal likers, living under attack in a country where the majority of people are animal haters/fearers. I would not say I want us all to be animal lovers, because I do not expect everybody to get all dewy eyed at the sight of an animal, but is it too much to ask for people to at least give animals the benefit of the doubt and don’t automatically assume that they are going to attack them? That man who said that my puppy had teeth obviously was implying that anything with teeth would bite. Well, it is probable that man has a penis – does that make him a rapist? Why do these people feel that they are so special that only humans like them can enjoy this earth? If you are not human, you should be caged, penned, chained up and scorned and neglected? Who died and made them Inheritors of the Earth? Walking to the beach, we passed a man peeing on KFC's back wall, and the beach was filled with discarded cyrotex containers, plastic bags and KFC wrappings - so tell me, who is the menace to society here?
How is a person to be a good animal parent under these conditions? The law is not on your side – the rules that exist are either un-enforceable, not enforced, archaic, discriminatory or downright asinine. The culture is not on your side – by and far Trinidadian think of dogs in utility terms (guard dogs especially) and treat them with the same compassion they would a wrought iron gate. There are no dog parks, dog activities, dog sports – even the dog shows are mostly to show case pit bulls “attacking” some idiot dressed like the Goodyear Tyre guy. Almost all parks and many beaches prohibit you from having your dog there. I once took my extremely well behaved dog to a company Family Day which was held on very large grounds, and many people were not pleased. I figured if their screaming, tantrum-throwing brats who were not on leashes could be there, so could my dog who was – but that kind of thing tends to sour your day.
All the dog experts in the world agree that dogs must be socialized – they must be exposed to different sounds, sights, smells and people and combinations thereof, if they are going to be able to get along with us humans. But how are you going to socialize your dog when, like this morning, every single person either glares at you, or passes some ignorant remark, or literally runs from the dog whenever you take him out? Almost every adult I met this morning had a child with him/her, and every adult reacted negatively. So not only is the problem present in the here and now – we don’t have any hope of things getting better because what lessons did this morning’s children learn, do you think? My puppy is four months and was on a leash – God alone knows what would have happened if I had decided to take my 76 pound male Pit Bull for a walk instead of the puppy! And it is not only Pit Bulls – the dog I took to the Family Day was a Shar Pei and Trini Pot Hounds have got to be the most abused and neglected dogs in the world – people think nothing of throwing hot water on them, speeding up to bounce them with cars, or putting them in bags and throwing them into the sea.
Tell me again about the milk of human kindness – I want to hear that story……
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