STEPPING on dog poo just outside the front door and stumbling over unsightly used baby diapers torn all over the lawn really got me thinking seriously about menace stray dogs in my neighbourhood.
Stick and stones don’t do much. Stray dogs these days are clever and use the cover of darkness to scavenge. I’m sure many of you face the same problem too. Here’s my story.
At my home in Raiwaqa (R), if the morning birds don’t get me up, the loud barking of dogs fighting over garbage will.
I’ve lived and travelled far long enough in R to tell you how people really feel towards stray dogs — people’s affection is more like Scooby Doo’s reaction to ghostly apparitions in the cartoon.
In R it all comes down to three days of the week when the inspirational phrase “man’s best friend” is treated with anything but respect.
In my area, if ever you see a stray dog on the run, look behind the animal and you’ll definitely see a man with a stick.
It’s rubbish collection days every Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays around 10am in R.
Every morning on these days, this densely populated suburb is busy with students making their way to school, noisy traffic and crowded school buses roaring past garbage bins, plastic bags and cardboard boxes piled by the roadside.
Then there are stray dogs tearing into plastic bags of rubbish and scattering the smelly contents along Grantham Rd.
The Suva City Council had attempted to poison stray dogs once, but this was met by strong criticism from the public and failed to provide a solution.
Last week I was making my way to the bus shelter when a stray dog came charging in my direction.
Instinct told me to pick up a rock or branch for impact. It was then I caught a glimpse of my neighbour, an old man, chasing the animal with a 4×2 in his hand. He looked really pissed.
He didn’t catch the dog but yelled profanities at it — words too vile for me to write down in this report — if I did I’d probably be out of a job.
He told me the dog came over his fence and turned his rubbish bin upside down.
My parents stack their household garbage a metre high from the ground on a wooden stand. We had specially erected it for this purpose yet stray dogs got it too.
I think those scavengers piggy-back on each other to get up there — that incident still remains a mystery in my family today. We only found the scattered rubbish littered along the yard and it definitely couldn’t have been the flies — I call them the midnight ninjas.
Since then, we’ve built a higher rubbish stack and I really hope no circus dog comes marching in my neighbourhood — it just might teach other dogs a new trick.
I shared my thought with a friend about stray dogs and their ninja ability to sneak in and out of the compound quietly and grabbing rubbish from a metre high.
“Ninja mai vei,” said my good friend Mr B.
“Dua ga ena tolo ni kau, na qai laurai o cei e ninja (all is needed is a stick and we’ll see who’s ninja)
His reply gelled with the opinions of other residents I spoke to except for my other buddy Bro Wani who really does see them as man’s best friend and in need of a home.
I agree with him to some extent.
Irresponsible residents are to blame for using plastic bags to collect household rubbish, instead of rubbish bins.
I can probably write a book here if I were to explain the health risks involved but the fact remains — we all must take responsibility for our own rubbish.
Clogging the footpath with plastic bags and paper boxes shows the carelessness of people.
If you’re reading this and know exactly what I mean, remember there’s a big yellow waste bin on the corner of Milverton Rd. Please use it!
The other night my good friend Mr B ended up at my place when he was caught off guard by a stray dog that charged at him. He did a lightning turn and dashed in the opposite direction.
He dropped his flip flops, grog and umbrella which by the way would have been helpful to fend off any attacker.
“Woi! Woi! …” his screams alerted me. After investigation, I found that the dog was not after him. My son chased it from our compound with a stick and it scrammed in Mr B’s direction.
The dog was running for its life too, but that part didn’t get to Mr B so he ran for his life too. So much for showing “who’s the ninja”.
