If for Prince Hamlet the dilemma was ‘to be or not to be?’, the question that dogs me is ‘to love or hate dogs?’ How can I hate ‘man’s best friend’? When it is a question of loving or hating dogs, I am truly on the horns of a dilemma.
Who can deny the adorable nature of dogs? I am moved with love at the very thought of them. Their devotion to their masters is absolute, unflinching and unconditional. There was an Italian dog which used to attend daily holy mass with his master unfailingly. When the master died, he continued to attend holy mass squatting at the same spot as before. The kind pastor allowed the sacred place to go to the dogs, bending church rules and decorum. Sheep dogs are the best security for grazing flocks of sheep. The German shepherds can rescue lost and straggling mountain trekkers from the Alps or the Himalayas.
Well-disciplined dogs never eat till given permission by the master even if they are ravenously hungry. Such dogs will not accept food from anyone other than their master. This often makes their masters to stay put at home and avoid trips beyond sunset. Some persons living alone have no other company than their pet dog. They are proud to take selfies with them, build them grand monuments and so on. Of course, the police use highly intelligent, well-trained dogs to sniff out the trail of fleeing criminals. When natural disasters such as earthquakes strike and rescue operations are under way, bulldozers and heavy equipment dig deep assisted by sniffer dogs which guide them by locating trapped victims. They are experts also in detecting drugs.
But alas! Good and bad are inexorably messed up on this unhappy planet of ours. Dogs are no exception. They can be as puzzling as urbane Dr. Jekyll and hideous Mr. Hyde rolled into one and the same person. You see their ugly side when the street becomes their address. A famished dog in the street can revert to the original wolfish nature of his wild primitive days and do what any carnivore would do to satiate gnawing hunger — kill and eat. The hungry dog squad targets a little child walking home alone on the street, or an elderly person taking an evening walk. When such easy victims are not readily available on the street, they carry the battle to the front lines and attack perhaps a luckless migrant mother sitting at the doorstep of her poor hut, nursing her tender child. The pack makes a concerted lightning raid and snatch the child out of her shocked hands and numbed mind and vanish round the corner.
Now citizens are hopelessly divided over the issue of loving or hating dogs. Petitions to the government by the vulnerable are mostly gathering dust because they lack political clout owing to their poor social status. Those who live on the street, poor labourers, errand boys, vagrant children and early morning walkers are sitting ducks for famished canines.
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