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Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Tuesday, April 2, 2019
On Dogs
Sanjana Hattotuwa-March 30, 2019, 5:13 pm
"The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs."
– Charles De Gaulle
– Charles De Gaulle

My parents had a cat when I was much smaller. It watched TV with us.
Ambling along once a teledrama had started, it sat far too close to the
TV to really see anything but proceeded to look left and right. What
grabbed its attention remains a topic of conversation in the family to
this day. That’s what pets do. They are an endless source of stories,
laughter and laments. The cat died when I was too small to feel any
sadness. I am told it is buried somewhere in the garden. The family
maintains it was killed by an incompetent vet. The vet’s erstwhile house
is still cursed silently when passed.
I am not entirely convinced, but never get in the way of its re-telling.
Ricky I remember and am scarred by. For no discernible reason, the day
after I had come back from surgery to remove my appendix, Ricky bit my
hand, arm and leg. In that order. He was a strong dog, whose bark I
discovered was as bad as his bite. A tooth of his missed a major vein by
sheer luck. So in addition to an abdomen that felt like a bus had run
over it, I was for the next several days like an Egyptian mummy –
bandaged literally from hand to heel.
Not that Ricky cared. Knowing, partially and sporadically, he had done
something that made the humans who fed him angry and sad, the dog tried
to make amends by, first, looking sheepish and when that failed, moping.
Eventually, this worked. Ricky never bit me again, or from his
perspective, I never smelt like something he felt the need to bark at or
bite. My father, Ricky’s permanent legal counsel, put it down the
foreign smells from a hospital that set him off. My mother, who made the
cardinal mistake of once feeding the mutt by hand when it was sick, had
to then for the rest of the years he lived, feed him by hand.
This involved lovingly rolling small balls of rice, running behind Ricky
in the back garden, prying open his mouth and shoving food down his
throat. Just as I wasn’t there for his arrival, I wasn’t there for his
passing. Unlike the cat before, I was glad I wasn’t. I can’t recall much
from the time I did my Masters, nearly 15 years ago. I do recall the
news that Ricky had died, and what I felt like for days after.
It’s been an absolutely crushing, long week, and for some reason, I have
thought of the dogs in my life. In the mid-90s, when my sister’s
father-in-law passed away suddenly, I recall the family dog who didn’t
move from under the casket, until it was lifted. And then, it looked
profoundly lost. Often in foreign countries, my encounters with dogs
have been far more varied than ever violent. It goes against every fibre
of my being to not get on all fours and pet sniffer dogs at airports.
In Kabul, the sniffer dogs looked happier and better fed than their
handlers. In Davos, the only St. Bernard I’ve seen, briefly, was in a
park and on top of me. Second before, I had been immersed in a book
under a tree. Again, I do not know what the dog saw me as, but the
horrified owner with leash in hand was perhaps even more confused when I
invited a second attack. This I almost immediately and very deeply
regretted, because the dog, having in its mind put me down as entirely
daft, proceeding to jump on me at full chat. Lomu, if alive, would have
met his match.
In Brooklyn and Berlin, where dogs are welcome in restaurants, pubs and
supermarkets, I’ve encountered dogs who have been better behaved than
most children. In Nairobi, the plump, pitch black and deep brown
Labradors of my hotel’s owner ritually greeted guests and accompanied
them to their rooms, which in my case was a tree-house of sorts with a
steep staircase. I found it hard to ascend, but the dogs, familiar with
the steps and impatient with struggling guests, pushed their way
through, sniffed around and then left after a thorough, vigorous petting
which was demanded. This was repeated every morning, and I suspect, in
all the rooms.
My son’s love of dogs is anchored to one household. There is story
recounted and I suspect even a photo,of when he was around five, a deep,
hushed conversation with Chloe – one of their dogs – under the kitchen
table. My son hadn’t learnt to distinguish between dogs and humans,
perceiving or treating one as he would the other. Chloe, for her part,
had been entirely attentive and very patient with the small, talkative
human. I recall when Chloe died, but my son was too young to comprehend.
But when Trinnie – an angelic Alsatian in the same household - passed
away last year, both he and I were completely devastated, for days. We
used to spend weekends with her dogs and three others, washing and
brushing, feeding or being chased and eaten. The character, mentality
and traits of dogs come through close, kinetic association. Both my son
and I, in just that one household, spend more time on floors and all
fours, heads buried amongst a blurred mass of paws and fur, than seated
and talking as humans generally do.
Another friend and her husband, both completely mad in all the right
ways, have more dogs and cats at home – all rescued – than I can ever
keep track off. It is never short of an epic struggle to get myself and
my son out of that house, with dogs and cats who range from the really
strange to the certifiably mad, co-existing miraculously. And then
there’s Boomer, an ageing Labrador who clearly came upon a single-digit
age he liked and mentally stuck to it, resulting in behaviour associated
with a puppy from a large, fat, uncoordinated, mad mastiff.
Unsurprisingly, he made fast and firm friends with my son.
Perhaps because some of my best memories are around or with them,death
often makes me think of dogs. The grief I feel when someone close dies
is entirely indistinguishable from the profound
sadness I’ve felt after a dog I’ve known and loved has passed away. I have been followed by beautiful stray dogs, bitten by my own dog, pounced on by random dogs, humped on by friends’ dogs,
known many mad dogs and loved truly strange dogs who I strongly suspect may never have known they were what they were. I’ve cried so much after watching ‘Marley and Me’ on a flight, that the stewardess, visibly distressed, asked me if I was returning because of a sudden death in the family.
So much of what dogs are, I wish more humans were and possessed. Their short lives give meaning to our longer, and sometimes more pointless ones. I may be in a small minority of people who believe
that to be compared to a dog is high praise, and a rare compliment. Trying to make sense of the sudden death this week, I recalled Pamuk’s line from one of his better novels, on how dogs speak, but
only to those who know how to listen. Perhaps the best amongst us, are dogs in disguise. I would be perfectly fine with that.
sadness I’ve felt after a dog I’ve known and loved has passed away. I have been followed by beautiful stray dogs, bitten by my own dog, pounced on by random dogs, humped on by friends’ dogs,
known many mad dogs and loved truly strange dogs who I strongly suspect may never have known they were what they were. I’ve cried so much after watching ‘Marley and Me’ on a flight, that the stewardess, visibly distressed, asked me if I was returning because of a sudden death in the family.
So much of what dogs are, I wish more humans were and possessed. Their short lives give meaning to our longer, and sometimes more pointless ones. I may be in a small minority of people who believe
that to be compared to a dog is high praise, and a rare compliment. Trying to make sense of the sudden death this week, I recalled Pamuk’s line from one of his better novels, on how dogs speak, but
only to those who know how to listen. Perhaps the best amongst us, are dogs in disguise. I would be perfectly fine with that.