The lost dog

Damaris came back from her eye appointment (she has Glaucoma) and, as she turned off the main road onto the steep narrow local road that leads to our hamlet, she had to brake suddenly because there was a dog flopped out in the middle of the road. This was not a case of some creature choosing an inappropriate place to sun itself (for starters, there was no sunshine to be enjoyed). The animal looked very sick and ill-at-ease and Damaris even wondered if it was rabid – a disease which we have never heard of anyone contracting anywhere even vaguely near us.

The dog was a huge Italian sheepdog and it turned out to belong to the goatkeeper who lives at the bottom of our hill. We knew he had a big female one – she is kept chained up outside the whole year long and even in the middle of summer (35C or above) and winter (-12C and below) she has no shelter or respite. Apparently she gave birth to three pups – one he kept, one he killed and this one which he allows to roam the countryside looking for food (as he refuses to feed it).

Damaris called the local Vigili (police) on their mobile (the guy is going to regret giving her that!) and he sent two dog-catchers around to collect the mutt from the road. How they ever catch a dog must remain a mystery because no matter how old and decrepit it might be, it would still move faster than them. Anyway, they arrived just in time for it to scarper off across the fields.

From the dog’s point of view this is just as well. Capture by the dog-catchers effectively means life (as in until death) in a tiny cage with very limited human contact. Damaris had offered to take the dog (although what we would have done with it, goodness knows). At one year old, it was far too badly set in its anti-social ways to fit in with our plans and, in any case, there is no room left in the back of our Nissan Pathfinder after our three dogs are in it.

This is how locals view animals. If they don’t work or don’t feed you, then they are useless. This is not just the English sense of ‘fair play’ nor our obsession with pets and their rights, this goes deeper. There is something very lacking in the education of the people here. Did you read my post on the hunter who shot a thrush? It was ‘OK’ because it was a migrant bird and not a native one. What has that spurious bit of logic to do with anything?

I don’t think that a single person we know has any idea of environmental changes, disappearing species, overcrowding, pollution or any of the long list of modern ailments. Is this just a lack of interest, an in-built arrogance or the product of a catholic education? For a people who are normally more caring to strangers than many places one could name their attitude seems incongruous and incomprehensible.