This blog post by Maria Goodavage highlights the plight of dogs in
Greece following the economic problems of the country. The relationship between economic hardship and increased stray dogs on the streets is fairly clear
but I think economics can work against dogs in another way. For example, in
Bangkok, dog abandonment seemed to actually increase in times of boom as if
buying a cute puppy had become a minor expense and the dog was then
unfortunately later included in the carefree, throw-away attitude to life that
prosperity had brought. In other words, increased wealth meant that belongings,
including dogs, became disposable.
Another report
(here) also discusses the Greek stray problem but with the added remark that in
times of hardship people looking for a dog are more likely to adopt strays than
buy from a pet store.
However, what particularly interested me in the first blog post was the
comment “In which civilized part of the world are the streets considered as the
natural environment of a dog????”.
Aside from the
question of what she means by “civilized”, I would argue that that is exactly
the natural environment of a dog. I don’t mean all those dogs that have spent
so many generations being turned into breeds and living in people’s homes but
certainly the dog as an animal in a general sense. They are superbly suited to
living as pets but also superbly suited for living on the streets wherever
culture and climate allow. I believe that’s where they came from and in some
parts of the world that’s where many of them still are.
I think it
comes back to the western attitude to dogs being different to that in the east.
Westerners are so far removed from the idea of free-ranging unowned dogs that
they can only see it as wrong, which is fine in their own cultural context but this
view is increasingly being forcefully exported to eastern cultures. Well-meaning
it may be but the phrase “cultural imperialism” also comes to mind.
In some places
some dogs should be allowed to roam free.
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