A Telling Tail

Picture 1: I guess you’re sitting up there thinking you’re better than me.

Picture 2: Not particularly… I am sitting here because this is where my person lives and so this is where I live. 

Picture 1: I smell you every day as you pass me by, not caring to give me a second look on your high and mighty pedestal, with your colourful leash and collar. 

Picture 2: I do not look at you because my person says to mind my own business on walks and not get into any inconvenient situations. Also, I like my leash, it tells me when its walk time and without it there’s no suspense as to what’s around the next corner!

Picture 1: You seem to be greatly influenced by your “person”. I guess that’s one of the things that causes the huge divide between dogs like you and dogs like me. You had a person choose you, deem you worthy to take home with them. You were probably even born in a human’s house.                            

Picture 2: That’s all true, but what about you? I see you getting love from all these different humans who pass by. You get fed Parle G multiple times a day, by multiple different humans. And Parle G is the best!

Picture 1 (aside); Huh figures, not only does the privileged kid get all the fancy treats from that pet shop but he also gets Parle G.

Picture 2: Sorry? What did you say there? (excitedly) Do you have some Parle G to spare?     

Picture 1: I most certainly do not! What is your name little man?

Picture 2: Sparkles! My person said it was because I brought the joy and light back into her life. Do you have a name?

Picture 1: The people from the shops around here call me many different things… but my favourite is probably Raja, because I kind of rule this road.     

Sparkles (picture 2): Oh, wow!... At my home I’m considered a king of sorts too, at least they keep saying I am treated like a king is. When I look at it now, I can see how others may think I’m a spoilt little puppy. 

Raja (picture1): See? That’s how you and I are different, you have a person, a home, a bowl and bed to call your own. I do not have any of those things. Yes, you might say this road is my home and the people who show me some love now and then are my many people. But I have no stability. I’m not saying I don’t like what I have got, I established my power on this road over the other dogs and I’m respected. But that’s the thing, you have never been forced to establish anything. You have had everything handed to you since you came into this world. 

Sparkles: I’ve never thought of anything like that…

Raja: That is what creates this strange power dynamic between us. You have a collar and so you belong. Whereas I’ve been on this road for many more years than you have been in this world and I might me impounded any day. People see you on your walks, and think “how cute”, they see the bigger pedigree dogs and think “how handsome”. They see me and think, “oh the poor thing”. 

Sparkles: But wouldn’t you say it’s humans that make that divide? Like I see the difference between how my person is with her friends and how she is with the lady who comes to clean our home. Or how my dad talks to the people he works with and the driver who carries his stuff to take to the office. 

Raja: Oh yes, most definitely. I see so many instances where humans limit themselves to their own little circles because they consider something beneath them. And it is not just humans, see how you don’t give me a second glance? Because I am considered common, lower than you in the society that humans have created for dogs. 

Sparkles: But was it like this before humans made dogs their best friends as well? Was there this distinction? 

Raja: The circle of life always existed and there was always an animal above and below us in terms of strength and on the food chain. But humans have this thing they call culture, that seems to dictate what they can and cannot do.

Sparkles: I think I know what you’re talking about! Like how my person thinks she cannot take me with her everywhere she goes because dogs aren’t allowed in some places.

Raja: Yes and no, maybe not exactly like that. I’ll give you an example. Just last night I saw this man in a car, driving a girl home. She was crying in the backseat and he was clearly upset about something as well. But neither of them could say anything to each other because they were from vastly different stratum of society. 

Sparkles: That’s so strange! They’re both physically so close to each other but because of how far apart they are socially, both of them are just letting the other feel horrible by themselves. It’s like even though they have another human so close to them, they’re letting each other feel so alone. I think what they both need is a smothering of licks from a dog to get them all smiling again.

Raja: That might be your puppy solution to everything, but it may not always work. Think about how for example you were on a walk with your person and you saw me or another street dog like me who was injured. You would maybe look and try pulling towards me if you thought you could do something. But your owner would pull you away, scared that I might attack you or you may get some sort of disease from me. And just like that you see how I have a dog so close to me but I am left alone to fend for myself.

Sparkles: You are right, that may happen, but I know my person. I know she would come back to you with help to heal or to tie up your wound. I also know she works with two animal welfare organisations to take care of dogs on the street like you and to find homes for street dogs, she comes home every so often with all these strange smells of other dogs and people on her. 

Raja: I think I have seen vans that come and clean up the dogs on the street and they poke them with those pointy, painful needles. I don’t get how that’s helping anyone. 

Sparkles: I don’t like those needle things either. But they protect you from all kinds of diseases and keep you healthy. There are humans who are trying to help nowadays. 

Raja: But I also see those same people with these big foreign dogs like St. Bernard’s and Huskies, it is as if it adds to their status in society. And then I look around at us, the Indian dogs. We might be abandoned on the streets or even born here. But is that the only thing that defines how we get treated in this world? 

Sparkles: It really should not be that way. I don’t know if you have noticed this, but I see so many dogs who would be classified as the typical street dog in the dog park playing with their people. That means that some way somehow these dogs who were once out on the street now have the love and warmth of a home, with a person. 

Raja: So, in some cases they managed to make it out of this tough life. But have you have seen a switch in roles? We may be able to adapt and be brought into a home. But would dogs like you ever make it in the wild of the concrete jungle? 

Sparkles: When you make me think about it that way, no I don’t see that happening. My person hears so many stories of cruel families who abandon their dogs on the side of the road, far from their homes. Those dogs have no idea how to fend for themselves in the vicious outside world. They must drive themselves mad thinking what they did wrong to have their owners throw them out like that. 

Raja: So, you see? We would never be able to switch lives. I would never be seen jumping into a car with humans to go to the beach on a holiday and you would never be found desperately scavenging for scraps near the waste dumps. 

Sparkles: We’re both set in our own incredibly different life paths. The culture that dictates humans, dictates us too, maybe indirectly in our case. 

Raja: We may technically be descendants of the same species, but in this day and age dogs have developed and evolved very differently and have taken to different lifestyles. Our paths may intersect every once in a while, but when one thinks about the near future, the culture that governs us today will still be relevant and we will not be equal.

Written by:

Kyra Songadwala

FYBA 2019