Dogging It

I used to be a dog person... USED to is the key term here...

Yesterday morning I woke up before the sun rose and stumbled my way out into the courtyard of the building where we are staying (a prison-like head start where we sleep crammed together on thin mats that do little to disguise the hard floor beneath...) and took my camera bag out to catch a glimpse of the sunrise.

Well when I got to the courtyard I found the front gate locked and I couldn’t find my keys.

This should have been a sign to me. Go back to bed. Rest, catching the sunrise is not meant for you. However I ignored it and scaled up the chainlink fence, careful to avoid the section with barbed wire, and hopped down to the dimly-lit street below.

I had been witness to the dramatic sunsets that took place every night on the lagoon so I decided that my best bet to catch the sunrise was to head down the road and over to the ocean side of the island.

Even though the difference between lagoon side and ocean side is a matter of yards in the Marshall Islands, you can only cross from the central road to the beach at certain places because everything else is someone’s front yard.

I hiked my camera bag higher on my back and set off down the road.

In the Marshall Islands there are lots and lots of dogs, and none of them are stray, they all belong to someone. Some are aggressive but most are not. My program coordinator taught us all that the best way to take care of an aggressive dog is to either pretend like you are picking up a rock to throw at them, or at least actually throw a rock at them.

Being alone I chose to carry a whole pocketful of rocks with me.

As I walked along the scenes of the young Marshallese day greeted me. Women tending to fires, men sweeping out front yards and people sitting on chairs with towels around their necks, watching the road after a morning dip in the lagoon.

I was trying to live in the moment, you know breath it all in, when I heard a chorus of barking start up down the drive of a house. Nervously I fingered the rocks in my pocket and picked up my pace. From around the corner of the drive came a pack of five or six dogs growling viciously.

I remembered my training and pretended to wing a rock at them — they barely budged. Next I actually started throwing rocks. The dogs charged on through my volleys of desperation, but somehow I managed to make them back down and was on my way.

I breathed hard and said Yokwe (hello) to the people I passed and got some good photos (I think) of a boy carrying his spear out to the beach to do some fishing.

Then the moment of truth came — I had to turn around and make it back to the head start for a morning lesson. I wanted to take an alternative route around the pack of dogs but that is just the thing, in Majuro there is only one road, so it looked like I would have to go back and battle with the pack of degenerate pooches.

I loaded up my pockets with bits of coral (that is what rocks are here, just broken and crumbled coral) and set back with my jaw set and ready.

When I reached the house of the vicious pack nothing happened so I kept walking. I started to relax. My shoulders drooped. Then, as I was almost onto the next house, I heard a distant howl that sent a shiver up my spine. From around the back of the property came a barking mass of fur and teeth like some sort of bastard creature that God had messed up on but somehow allowed to roam the Earth.

I stood tall. I shouted back. I threw rocks.

And still they came...

Seconds before the lead dog closed in with his mouth aiming for a very important part of anatomy below the belly button and above the knees, I instinctively turned away from him. The problem with this is that it exposed my rump to attack and the lead dog was more than happy to oblige.

I yelped with pain and then with my last rock I turned and threw it into the mass and struck a dog near the back full-on in the face. He shrank away yelping and the others followed suit, leaving me free to walk on nervously.

I made it home alright but something fundamental shifted inside me.

I don’t know if you could classify me as a dog person anymore.

The love you give comes back in the end.
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