The wild dogs of Moresby – 4 legged variety
15 July 2010
IT CAME AS a
surprise to see semi-wild dogs roaming a city. There must be thousands of them in
They often kept me awake at night, howling some secret canine message in unison.
They could be dangerous - best carry a stick when going for a walk - but more often they were just distressing to see. Skinny as a lizard and ridden with mange.
An old grey abandoned sad-looking hound came to my house one day. All ribs, tongue and no bark.
Feeling sorry for him, I retrieved some of last night's stew and left it out with a bowl of water. He fawned over me after that - sitting at the bottom of the steps waiting for me to come out of the house.
Never a growl, never a bark, just a hopeful look in his eyes and the odd doggy tear and tail-wag.
I don't know why, but there are many uncared for and abandoned dogs in Moresby that seem to have coalesced through breeding into a whippet-type.
I know there are more important things to be concerned about, but someone once told me you can tell something about a society by how it treats its animals. I felt sorry for the Moresby dogs - ragged, diseased and sometimes violent mongrels that they were.
We found two puppies outside our house, and decided to adopt them. Jack and Jill were lovely pups. If we let them inside the house, they would jump on the bed wagging their tails furiously.
One day they got sick. We did our best, but the next morning woke up and found Jack dead outside the door, and Jill not far behind. It was a Sunday. We called a taxi to take Jill to the RSPCA vet).
The taxi driver couldn't believe his eyes - we wanted to take a dog in his cab! Fortunately a few kina alleviated his concern. The RSPCA diagnosed canine gastro-enteritis and treated her accordingly, so in two days she came home hail and hearty.
When we left she stayed with relatives at Morauta and terrorised the neighborhood and had a few puppies. A good insurance policy, God bless her.
Give a thought for the RSPCA in Moresby - a difficult job in an unsympathetic city.
That's true. I know there are so many dogs in the city of Port Moresby and other centres around the country.
They have nothing to do but roam the streets, having no other programs for the day.
Posted by: Joe Wasia | 15 July 2010 at 08:41 AM