Who let the dogs out?

Strange that my first encounter with death here was not in the hospital but in my own home - though maybe the deceased being the family dog makes this seem less important than someone passing away on the ward. Especially as I don’t even like dogs – not here anyway.

It’s not just crapping on the street I’m worried about. If only that were the only problem.

Rather, I’m confined to the house after 7pm because as soon as it’s dark the dogs take over. Not only do they bark menacingly, but they also chase and sometimes bite anyone in the street. I’ve seen the after-effects in our children’s ward and don’t intend adding to the hospital’s occasionally kept statistics.

And you can forget jogging in the early morning either, for the same reasons. A nice lie-in instead? No way! - the dogs will ruin that too, thanks to their daily 05.30 duet with the cockerels.

I can’t help feeling a little nostalgia for my time in Rwanda, where there are almost no dogs (if you’ve seen the film ‘Shooting Dogs’ you’ll never forget why – the liberating army shot them on sight after the 1994 genocide as they had developed a taste for human flesh).

My anti-dog feelings were not helped by the fact that the only one I did like, my family’s pet Mee, was savagely ripped to pieces by a pack of hounds last week.

She didn’t normally sleep in my bit of the house, and I jumped out of my skin when I saw her dark shape huddled in the corner one evening. There was no electricity so it wasn’t until the morning that I discovered the extent of her injuries.

So why is this allowed to happen?

I’m told that semi-wild dogs are still tolerated due to a religious superstition that they scare away ghosts. This may be true (true that people believe it, not that there are ghosts of course). But I don’t think they are that revered – canine roadkill disappears remarkably quickly and I bet often ends up on a bed of rice in a roadside food shack.

More pragmatically they may deter ‘gangsters’, the petty thieves who acquire bogeyman status here. I guess we need something in the absence of the strong arm of the law, which is only ever seen collecting traffic ‘fines’.

Or, dare I suggest that training dogs is part of developing and civilizing a country, a stage we just haven’t reached yet here?

It would be understandable: security, food and shelter before Barbara Woodhouse; employment, health and education before Crufts. I suspect that chasing pooch with a poop-scoop comes as low in the hierarchy of needs as a litter and pollution-free environment: vital for the interfering white man, not for the average Cambodian.

So back to poor Mee. I guess I’ll just have to find another uncritical friend on whom to practice my fumbling Khmer, to welcome me home with an friendly growl, or just to ease me awake with the occasional howl.