Last thursday there was a stray dog at my new school in Panama. There are plenty of strays here, so it´s nothing unusual. Apparently, nobody could touch her because she was so terrified.
All I saw when I walked out was this skinny, terrified, little dog being chased around by a bunch of humans ten times her size. They soon gave up and went back to doing whatever they had been doing before the dog appeared. Because I am the way I am, and because my own animals are still in South Africa (I am currently suffering from pet deprivation), I stayed close to the dog, but I still respected her personal space and stayed a few meters away. Eventually, she had calmed down enough to lie down.
This is when I started using my dog whisperer skillz. Once she lay down, I moved a few steps closer. When she looked at me, I made brief eye contact and then looked away again. I didn´t want her to think I was trying to stare her down, but I also wanted to let her know that I had noticed her. She continued watching me. I am a realist and know that the only reason she was watching me was because she wanted to make sure I didn´t get too close. Once more I made brief eye contact, then I crouched down and waited for her to understand that I was not going to act as crazy as the other humans who had chased her before. Once I was sure she understood, I put out my hands, not being overly timid, but also not being pushy about it. While I did so, I made eye contact again. (This is getting boring to read, isn´t it?) In this way, I told her that I just wanted to pat her, but that it was still her choice. In dog language, I asked her to allow me to be her friend. She got up and came over (with a slightly wagging tail) to sniff my outstretched hand. I still did not dare touch her. She lowered her head (her tail was already lowered to start with) and avoided eye contact. This is called being submissive. I carefully raised my hand to the height of the top of her head. I still did not touch her, I just wanted to see what her reaction would be. She did not flinch, so I softly tried to touch her. This time, she did flinch, but only a little bit and I was able to continue touching her. Only very gently!
Pattiing a dog who is on edge means that you have to be on edge too, and in my opinion, it doesn´t help either side. I didn´t want to create that kind of atmosphere for the two of us, so I did not stay still at any point. Instead, I kept making small movements. I have found that, contrary to popular belief, doing this is much more affective in getting an animal to lower their guard than keeping completely still. (It also worked on my feral rabbit.) After a while, I thought it was time to move closer, otherwise we would be frozen in this (kind of uncomfortable) position for ever. So I slowly shuffled closer (still in a crouching position).
Eventually, I was sitting right next to her with my arm wrapped around her. Another student came out and asked me if it was my dog, I told him no. Unlike the people before, he was reasonable enough to be carefull in trying to touch her. The dog allowed him to touch her, though she did get tense again. The other student then walked away. After a while, another crowd of students came by (although it may also have been the same one). They saw a little dog calmly sitting next to me, so they decided to cuddle her too. The dog got up and fled. They asked me how I managed to touch the dog when no one else had been able to. Because I didn´t want to tell them everything I just wrote, and also because they probably would not be intereted in it, I simply told them that I speak dog. (It is true, in a way!
)What I was thinking as I said that:
"How would you feel if some stranger, who is ten times your size, randomly came up to you and started trying to touch you? Is it really that surprising that she got scared?"
Anyway, I had to get up and follow at a distance, waiting for her to calm back down. Then I asked her to come to me again (in dog language, described above). This time, she came immediately because she now trusted me. After a while, she actually put her head on my lap! This is when I named her (only in my head, I haven´t told anybody about this). The name just popped up in my head without me wanting it to do so. For obvious reasons, I don´t like naming strays. After a while, a couple of younger children, who were playing some kind of game, ran by and spooked the little doggy. When she ran under the gate (which she was only able to do because she is so underweight), I thought I had seen the last of her. I was quite dissappointed, but I hadn´t really expected it to go any other way. (I did consider taking her home since we don´t have any pets here yet, but are planning to get another dog as a companion for my dog when we bring her here. Our other dog is already ten years old, so I think putting her on an 11 hour flight to Germany, and then another 11 hour flight to the USA, and then another 2 hour flight to Panama is just senseless cruelty. (As I said, I am a realist.)
Surprisingly though, this story is not over yet! On Tuesday that same dog came to the school again, and when I walked out (school was already over but my dad wanted to discuss something with the principal,) she actually recognized me and greeted me with a wagging tail. I greeted her too, and then I went to sit in the shade of the next best tree. She followed me and we cuddled for a while until my dad came out. (Her eyes, which had been cloudy and watery last time, now looked better, but there was something, that might have been blood, on her leg.) When the principal, who also helps at an organization aimed at helping the strays, saw me with the dog, she told me that it was up for adoption, and that I could take her home if I wanted to. So I tried picking the dog up, which, surprisingly, she allowed me to do.
Then I carried her over to our rental car, where my dad was waiting, and told him that we could take her home. Being the cold, heartless person that he is, he refused. (Not that I really expected anything else.) He said that there was nobody who would look after the dog when we went back home to Germany, even though there actually is a girl who said that she would be willing to look after our animals while we were away. Another reason his argument is useless is that, whatever we do when we leave, it´s unlikely that she would be worse off than she is now! Even if we were to just kick her back on the street, (which wouldn´t happen anyway) it would at least mean that she was happy at some point in her life.
Once we have a place where we can permanently stay, and once we know who will take care of her when we are in Germany, and if I am lucky enough to run into her again once we have all those things sorted out, we might actually be able to keep her.
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).
) but it definately didn´t seem like she was still nursing them. I think they were probably culled. It´s sad, but that´s what happens in real life.
