Canine Cruelty

Not a happy post, sorry! An unintentional continuation of the last post's topic...

One of the other volunteer's dog was recently killed by a neighborhood teen. This lead to several disconcerting discussions with other Gasies about 'why the Americans didn't like this'. The Malagasy attitude toward dogs is, frankly, vile. Dogs are widely fady (taboo), and while Malagasies tend to live and let live with most other animals (and will even courteously swerve their cars to avoid hitting always-valued cows), dogs are pretty universally hated. Normally quiet Gasies will start screaming is a dog enters their yard, and kids learn pretty early that dogs are OK to hit. I suppose this stems in part from the high incidence of rabies in the country, but it's still inexcuseable.

I snapped at a teen for throwing rocks at a dog while he was sitting on my porch: “Well I'm Antimoro,” he responded, naming a Southern tribe, “dogs are fady to me.” “Well I'm American,” I responded, “and this is my yard, and it's fady to throw rocks at dogs in my yard.” A slight shake of his head in response to this new wave of weirdness from the foreigner. I went off at another guy who was slashing at a tied dog with a stick while I was getting well water, and a neighbor told him to stop making me upset. So he took the dog behind the house and I had to follow him and explain in mangled and angry Malagasy that no, it's not that I just didn't want to see it, I didn't want him to do it, either. And last week one of the neighbor dogs turned up with a nasty gash in his shoulder and one of the kids told me someone had hit it with a machete. “Why!?!” A shrug in response.

This is definitely one of the harder cultural aspects to deal with, a callous indifference to canine suffering. Trying to explain Americans' attitudes towards dogs is difficult. “Dogs are our best friends”--Malagasy wrinkles nose in disgust as a response. “My dog sleeps in my bed at home!”--a shake of the head. “It's illegal to hurt dogs in the U.S. Some people go to jail”--raised eyebrows. “You know, you could even go to jail or have to pay money if you don't feed your dog enough”--widening eyes and a snort of disbelief. There's no way to deal with this besides educating and trying not to get too mad at people. And never bringing my dog to Madagascar, of course.