For the past 15 months I have been the primary caretaker of a bona fide street dog, a barrio zaguate called Dorothy. My wife adopted and named her after she turned up in a box in the driveway of my brother and sister-in-law. I was away when she was brought to the house, but over the past year plus, as I work from home and my wife works outside the home, she has become my dog for the most part.
Dorothy is an ankle sniffer and a leg-licker, and greets anyone who comes to visit by attempting to leap into their lap. She steals socks, headbands and pens, and eats like a goat. Birds and chickens are not safe when she is around. She once ran down and snagged a wandering rooster while unleashed on the local soccer field. After a frantic half minute of trying to catch her, she let the squawking, terrified rooster go. It lived. I went back to check on it a few times and it was still strutting around the area, minus most of its tail feathers.
I have to face facts: my dog is a juvenile delinquent. She was abandoned young, is an outdoor dog by choice, loves being on the street with the other barrio dogs who are free to wander, and is always looking for the smallest opening in the hedge that serves as a border with our neighbors in order to escape. When we leave in the car, she will somehow slip her 12-kilo body through a fist-sized opening and pursue our car at top speed for a few hundred meters before turning back. Any motorcycles, bicycles, or loud heavy vehicles passing by will be chased on her return trip.
Last year, we decided she needed more room and rehomed her on my sister-in-law’s farm, thinking the open spaces would be perfect for a free-range dog. Within a few days she killed a chicken and went after one of the geese, which earned her a stay in the dog house on a short leash of rope. We went down and brought her back home, in effect rescuing her for a second time.
Dogs have been domesticated for around 20,000 years. Feral canines hanging around human settlements where they could get food was the beginning of the human-dog love affair. Why do we love them? Is it because they love us back under almost any conditions? You may know the joke: if you want to see who loves you more between your significant other and your dog, just lock them both in your car trunk for a few hours, then note who is happier to see you when you open it.
Dorothy is on her way to being fully domesticated, just as I am about to leave for an extended visit to the US. My wife is worried, as during the week she works 40 kilometers from home and is gone from 4:30 a.m. to about 3 p.m. She does not want to keep the dog 12 hours a day on a few meters’ length of chain, but fears the worst if she is left free each morning. She envisions a scenario where Dorothy chases a motorcycle, causes a wreck, and we are sued.
I counter that I have lost count of the number of times a dog has run at me while cycling. It is commonplace here. I was once chased by a rat-dog down a street that turned out to be a dead end. On my return trip the same little cur bit me on the ankle. I followed the dog back to its house and stood outside calling “Su perro me mordió” over and over, while whoever was inside laid low. The idea that I could somehow sue them was not worth considering.
Tomorrow I am off to the hardware store to buy enough fencing to patch the openings. Though my wife expresses her doubts, I am like a defense attorney who knows he has his case won. Dorothy will be saved once more.
