I Have A Dog

“I once had a dog,

Or should I say,

He once had me.”

With apologies to John Lennon but I could not resist opening with that paraphrase which neatly sums up my situation at the moment here at LAMB.

Bardy is a stray dog who, for some reason known only to him, has decided that our home and family are to be his home and family. This decision of his has not come without problems as well as joys and has left me ruminating over the meaning of pets and the relationship of animals with Bangladeshis.

Bardy himself is something of an unwanted dog. Even his name is not right. Apparently it was said to be his name as a joke by a kid from the school who actually gave another kid’s nickname. Somehow the word got around and it stuck. He is just the most incredibly affectionate and friendly dog who loves the kids at the school and is really pleased to see anyone. Unfortunately, he also goes where there is food and that means hospital areas and the school at snack break time. Though Bardy himself is as soft as anything, where there is one stray dog others are sure to follow and they certainly do.

Bardy’s friendliness to humans becomes submission to other dogs and as a result he gets ‘chewed out’ literally and this means a lot of barking, fighting, growling and teeth baring that scares children and adults alike. And that’s where it all goes wrong and gets confused. Scared people means complaints, complaints mean there is a problem and where there is a problem – at least as far as strays are concerned – it means removal by the only means likely to work. As a dog-lover that scenario upsets me. Bardy is, in a very real sense, living on Death Row. He doesn’t know it, but he could find that one day he wakes up and it is his last - well before his time.

Of course, that is a last resort but the clock is ticking as options continue to run out. No one wants to do the job of getting rid of the strays but at the same time most people want ‘someone’ to do it. As long as it is not them. So I continue to feed Bardy, give him limited shelter if he wants it in the form of our porch which I keep open at night so he can sleep safely, I keep other dogs away and I train him in the hope that deshis here will see that these animals are intelligent and capable. But he is not mine and I can’t protect him all the time. Sometimes, he has turned up bleeding all over from wounds inflicted by other dogs or by men who have beaten him.

I saw him kicked the other day before I could tell the person to stop because he was ‘my dog’ (To say the truth, that I belong to the dog, would just be way too confusing). Interestingly, Bardy barely moved. Didn’t growl, didn’t run away. He just acknowledged he had been kicked and carried on barking at the stray dog that had appeared in the noisy manner that had elicited the kicking in the first place. I found myself comparing this to the lot of many women here – especially the poor ones – who are often beaten, punished, scolded, starved or otherwise harmed by husbands or (as often as not) mothers-in-law. Usually the response, when asked why they put up with it, is the same. “Why would I not? I am poor. I am a woman. This is what happens.” Bardy seemed to say the same thing. “I am kicked. I am a dog. This happens.”

You may well be upset that I have just compared women to dogs but please don’t misunderstand me. Very often the value of a woman is about the same as a dog and certainly less than the value of a cow. A cow for a village man produces milk and meat that can be sold or used by the family. A woman produces nothing. In our first day of living in Bangladesh we were taken to the Language school in Banani where we would spend 3 months learning the language. The woman who was the head there led us into her office. As we spoke I noticed the poster behind her on the wall. In Bangla it said “My wife does nothing” and the picture was of a traditionally dressed married woman with around 20 arms coming out of her, each doing a different task – cooking, cleaning, washing children, milking the cow, cutting corn in the field and so on. But she does nothing. A far cry from the men we often see huddled together by the bank of a river playing cards and gossiping for hours on end.

Our own ayah (who is, in my opinion, one of the most important women I have ever had the honour of knowing and learning from), works with incredible efficiency and speed in our house, often second-guessing what we are thinking of when we forget to actually ask her for some lunch and so on. She goes home after a full day’s work and then does all the work for her own house. On her day off, she tells us she does even more work there and that, in some ways, coming to our house to work is more like a chuti (holiday). We have been to her house many times and it is beautifully kept and maintained despite the difficulties of living in a house made of mud and a country that is wet for most of the time. But I digress.

Life, as you may imagine, out in Dinajpur (in the Northwest of Bangladesh) can be pretty hard for all – man or woman – and working in a hospital environment where people often only come as a last resort (and therefore dying), means that we see it at its worst. Many of the Bideshis (foreigners) here struggle with what they see, working all hours and emotionally being drained of energy. But we only see it and get involved in trying to help. It is the deshis who actually suffer the diseases, the poverty, the malnutrition and the abuse. They do so, usually, stoically and with great honour and though I can never empathise with their plight (to suggest I could would be an insult), I feel proud to have served these amazing people.

Yet, (and please read what I have written again to weigh what I say next properly) of all the things we have seen in two years, all the pain as well as joy, the one image that sticks in my mind and heart is not one of people. This article is about dogs remember.

Whilst still in our 3 months training in Dhaka, my wife and I were walking to the Language school one early morning as the dokanders were setting up their shops on the streets. Suddenly we heard a yapping from the other side of a street. This cute little puppy was waddling around obviously excited by everything it was seeing and running up to anyone who came near the stall that had been set up. We assumed the puppy belonged to the dokander as it seemed very healthy and not mangy and thin like strays normally look here. I can only describe it as looking and acting like the Andrex puppy off the adverts back in the UK. We carried on walking but we were both moved (in truth, Vikki had melted). A little further on we turned back to look at the little thing waddling across the street to a nicely dressed man on the other side who was passing by.

“I wonder if it belongs to anyone” Said Vikki “it’s so cute”.

I thought it must have belonged to someone – the stall owner at least – but we never found out. At that point, the well dressed man, who was grinning but obviously irritated by the animal, started to kick it gently and push it back into the street with his foot. At just that moment a car drove slowly by and he pushed the puppy with his foot straight under the car’s front wheel. Time seemed to freeze as we watched, horrified as the body lay motionless after the car had passed. There was no commotion. Just the young man kicked the body with his foot to make sure it was dead and carried on with his walk to work. I don’t think he had intended to kill the animal, just get rid of it. He still grinned but now with a sheepish “oops” kind of a look.  But he didn’t care either way and nor did any of the dozen or so people milling around at the time who saw what happened. We, however, felt sick in the stomach and though we went to the school for our studies, we could not concentrate. Even now, I feel ill to remember what happened.

When I see Bardy (or any animal) I am reminded of that incident and the strange relationship that Bangladeshis have with animals. Cows and chickens, of course, have great value along with many other animals that provide meat, milk and hide that can be used. Cats and dogs tend not to be valued, but even here in Dinajpur, many poor people keep both and look after them with care and attention. We were once told that Bangladeshis hate cats and certainly one of our friends is terrified of them. But the person who told us was a Bideshi who doesn’t like animals themselves and we have quickly realised that in this country you see what you want to see and you interpret things according to your own values. I’ve heard a lot of rubbish from NGO workers here. The ones I trust, ones who have been here for many, many years and are almost more Bangladeshi than of their own country – they are the ones who will tell you more truthfully that the longer they live here the less they know with certainty. It’s a complex place.

So I can’t tell you if Bangladeshis love animals as pets or not. Some do, some don’t. Some at LAMB are terrified of them and complain asking for them to be ‘got rid of’ in some unspoken manner. Others tell us that they think the Bideshi way of treating them is inhumane and immoral. “They are a life.” one deshi told me “how can I destroy a life?” In an environment set up to save and support life I am surprised more don’t agree. But then I am British. I am an animal lover. Pets are part of my life and always have been. That’s probably why I was so affected by that puppy. It’s probably why Bardy has had such an affect on me here. I left my own dog back in the UK to come here and he was, in some ways, the hardest sacrifice despite leaving home, comfort, family, money, friends and a 100 other things. I left a life behind. I am not sure I can leave this one defenceless.

Bardy, of course, is totally oblivious to all of this and can cause trouble. Another stray dog attempted to get into the church building just before the service a few days ago and, for once, Bardy went crazy. The two bawling animals literally fell into the church causing screams from children, women and men alike. Neither dog was hurt and neither attempted any violence towards a human being but, as the expression goes, the bark was worse than the bite and people were scared. Bardy fully focussed on the other dog who was, without doubt, the enemy. In the end, I went and sorted it out, without violence, with a bucket of water. It is my usual weapon against dogs and always works in driving them from my home, the school and now the church. My hope is that people come to realise that you can get them to go away without hurting them at all. But Bardy’s unusual anger has not helped his own plight.

“Stupid dog” I said to him as I locked up for the night leaving him sleeping on the veranda. “You’re more trouble than you’re worth.”

And then, proving who really is the more stupid, I turned, smiled at him and patted him on the head.

“Goodnight Pal.” I said “See you in the morning. I hope.”