IN THE remaining days of December, when the Rooster was eager to disappear to Neverland and flee the hurtling malevolence that came with the Dog, I embarked on a little adventure. I told myself, it would be nice to welcome the New Year in an exotic haven and already away from my upper floor neighbors who thought having free-roaming dogs who chase and bite people was alright.
It did not matter that it was already December 30 when I decided to move in. Never mind that to get a ride from the new place, I had to hike a steep trail for about seven minutes and walk a narrow road for another ten minutes it was that narrow that a young boy was crushed to death by a slow moving truck in the second day of the New Year. After all, the neighborhood was a reprieve from the polluted and congested Baguio; pine trees flourished and their scent wafted in the air, the icy breeze nipped the soul, and abundant sunflowers blossomed in their yellow glory.
There was also the gentle stream of the brook winding its way through the dirt path that leads to the bungalow. It was the perfect setting for a hopeless romantic like me. Besides, I was living with three golden retrievers who needed ample space to roam and safety from vehicular traffic.
As days went by, my daring slowly unraveled. Cats and dogs frequented the property to scavenge for food scraps. My two adult dogs are not friendly to cats and to my horror; they bolted out through the barbed wire fence to chase after the strays. Exercising the dogs by retrieving balls became impossible. During the late afternoons, several mosquitoes emerged from the foliage making me wary of the heartworm larvae that they can transmit to the dogs.
On New Year’s Day, I invited friends over for some food and wine. We gathered at the second level of the terraced front yard. I set a makeshift dining table and proudly remarked how it was so nice having a candlelit dinner amidst the trees. One of my friends retorted, “It’s more like we are in a cemetery?” I thought she was just teasing me over the candles. Then our other friend followed with, “Haven’t you seen the graves right before your gate?” That was like being doused with a pail of rainwater. In the morning, I checked the three rectangular concrete slabs on the ground and confirmed that these were indeed tombs - one slab bore the symbol of the cross engraved in one of its corners. I have so many friends whose relatives were laid to rest in front of their respective houses and I was never bothered. But then again, these were not my relatives. I could not stop imagining that in one of the late nights that I am opening the gate from drunken stupor, a disembodied voice from my back would suddenly ask me, “Do you need help with your keys?” Three weeks after what I thought would be a hell of an adventure, I packed my bags and together with the dogs, left, and never looked back.
In the short span of time I was in my rustic paradise, as I walked along that paved road to get to Balacbac road, I always passed by a house that had several dogs. At the far right corner of the property were around four steel bar cages with dogs inside. Judging from their respective “silhouettes” (body outlines), they were German Shepherds. Alongside the semi-alfresco area fronting the house, tied to a line from two posts each in the opposite directions of the canopy, were two more dogs, another German Shepherd and a Golden Retriever. The scene made me feel sad and angry at the same time. Here were dogs of noble breeds, meant to be working with their humans, freely and actively roaming, alas they were docile and lonely, spending most of their time in the little spaces that their cages and tether would allow them to move about. The house was usually devoid of human presence.
Which begs the question, do the owners love the dogs along Balacbac Interior-A? I am quite sure they will claim they do, that it was a love at first sight when they first met them when they were puppies. The glaring fact, however, was that the dogs in question were being subjected to abuse. For people with dogs who obviously possess intelligence and the trait to please, and to work and retrieve, it is not difficult to deduce that restricting their movements and depriving them of substantial human interaction would make them unhealthy and unhappy. Most of us have deep attachments to our companion animals. But usually we subject our dogs to abuse and are not even aware of it. The worst part is the fact that dogs are so giving and forgiving that they will always love back and trust over and over again even only with the slightest display of affection from us.
That life of those dogs in Balacbac is life no dogs should end up with. To avoid this pitfall, before embarking on having companion animals in our lives, purebred or not, two fundamental questions must be asked. One, are we willing to consider the animal as a member of our family? Two, have we fully researched and studied the breed of the dog we are taking in and subsequently on how to raise them properly? The answers should be in the affirmative. If not, we may not have a dog.
So, as humans, how do we love a fellow human? Do we make an honest-to-goodness examination of our motivations before proclaiming our deepest affection and enduring love? Do we try our best to understand fully the person that we plan on loving? Are we ready to provide a relationship that is nurturing? Will we allow the person we profess to love to be himself or herself? Are we even aware that to be in love is to be in a mutually beneficial relationship?
Have you ever wondered why there are so many abandoned dogs, even purebreds?
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