Town Dog Adopted

“Village dog” is a term usually used to describe unowned but welcomed canines living around human communities in, for example, southeast Asia. Now from Oxford in Mississippi we have the new version of “town dog”. This is the story (here) of a stray dog that lived on the town’s streets for several years before finally getting adopted as a pet.

Two things seemed to surprise the dog’s new owner. One was that "Other than 10 ticks I pulled off of him, he's in better shape than most dogs his age”. The other was that once he posted pictures of the dog on his Facebook page he realised just how many people had interacted with the animal. He said, "It seems he was very popular around town".

Given the community care that he had clearly been receiving and his apparently quite healthy lifestyle, why are we so convinced that what this dog “needed was a good home”? In the north American context with cold winters and no “village dog” culture it is probably the right thing to happen but the description of this dog’s life pre-adoption seems to be one of people feeling unnecessarily sorry for him.

I’m certainly not criticising the adopter but, for me, a happier end to the story would have been if people had realised the value of having a shared “town dog”, allowed the dog to continue its unowned lifestyle and collectively organised the animal’s care if and when he needed it.

Learn more about the lives and issue of unowned dogs in my e-book ”A Stray View” available from Bangkok Books (readable as .pdf on any computer)