I've just remembered that I had to write a long overdue blog entry about the dogs of Bucharest. Bucharest is an old European city, meaning that it grew with the needs of the people, starting from a little village and becoming Romania's capital. A lot of things happened here, like the world wars. During the war a lot of pets were left homeless and ownerless and became street mutts. That created in time a large population of dogs, living in packs, having their own territory and so on and so on.
Now, fast forward to the
Basescu era. This guy was so frustrated that Bucharest was not looking like most western European capitals, that he focused on transforming Bucharest, starting with what he probably saw while he was abroad. That meant getting rid of dogs and
boutiques and street merchants, amongst other things. Well, I went for a small tour of Europe a while ago, and I didn't like it. All the cities were barren, like lifeless stone deserts, where you could only pay a lot of money for the smallest amount of food or walk aimlessly looking at old buildings. Basescu wanted to turn Bucharest into this.
A lot of people were for this getting rid of dogs business, while in the mean time, animal lovers were crying against it. In order to truly make a decision, one must know what the dogs of Bucharest are like. Most of them are very friendly, they let people pet them, while begging for food or attention. They are not wild animals, but liberated pets, and they act more like pets that way. Some of them, organised in packs, tend to become very territorial, defending their turf with loud barks and sometimes (when the human doesn't get it) with bites. Because of this kind of behaviour, most Bucharest dwellers agreed with the dog removal. But most dogs were having a very adapted life to the city. They had families, ways to get food that included being nice to humans as well as hunting and eating rats and, don't laugh, a culture of their own. I do say that because I have watched them behave and along with their natural instinctive behaviour and the stuff they learned during their life, they also exhibited learning and teaching abilities. I have seen mother dogs showing their pups how to grovel or how to cross the street and avoid cars.
But what does this say about us? That we want to destroy what we fear and don't understand. Even the more aggressive dog packs would not attack a human that doesn't provoke them and that faces them. A simple trick like walking backwards (and not trying to show the human superiority by kicking dogs or by throwing stones at them) would have left even a 20 dog strong pack barking, but not biting. And this kind of aggressive dog behaviour can be immediately fixed in each particular case. No, instead we chose to "nuke" the dogs, making us worse than the most bite happy mutt pack out there.
No dogs means also no life on the streets, no puppies except the ones in pet shops (the expensive ones that you have to buy because they have a pedigree and that get sick really easy), more rats. In some of the western countries that people like Basescu so blindly admire, dogs are being used in anger management programs in prisons. Taking care of an animal, just looking at a friendly, uncomplicated creature that craves your attention, gives us something that fights off anger and rage. We have enough rage in Bucharest, alright, but the dogs may soon be gone.
The lead characters of this author seem to always be quiet guys, ready to accept anything and be taken anywhere by the story. The same incredible things happen, all narrated in a very calm way, making them real. The obsession for American or English music permeates everything. I've read two Murakami books, but also some reviews for other books, and the same situation seems to be repeating itself.
