A Dog's Life

I've never witnessed such happy dogs. In Beibei, they're everywhere--free spirited little fellas--seen exploring, skipping along, checking things out, rarely just sitting.

The noodle shop owners jumped out of their chairs, leaving beer and water bottles on the walk, while the pup sniffs my groceries.

This four-footed "student" at Southwest University is sniffing out the bathrooms.

I observe them moving freely in and out of wide open noodle shops; trotting along on the university tracks--perhaps less doggedly than the two-footers they might be following; in and around the tall buildings lining Tiansheng Lu. They often seem to be on a mission--off to somewhere, usually using the sidewalks and pathways, but seemingly independently of their humans.  Maybe their humans are over there, doing some slow motion taijiquan or something, while they make the most of the chance to see the day. Most of the little ones I see are neither dawdling nor in a dead heat--they're just moving along with spirit. I also see them here in the laps of women on motor scooters, men there,  sometimes calmly spread out on top of boxes strapped to the back, their ears blowing back with the wind.  Rarely do I see one on a leash. In fact, the only time I've heard a dog barking, deep unfriendly growling, the dog was incarcerated. I witnessed that only once--one time back on the mountain lane where I sometimes run, and I sure don't want to be anywhere around if that dog is ever released. But all the rest of the dogs I see are small,  chipper little beings. How could this be, given all the stories in Western media about dog abattoirs and dog meat for human consumption in China?

I'm sure some of the news stories are true, but it seems that the history of dogs, as with so many things in China, is as complex as it is fascinating. Here in Beibei, dogs--like children--are beloved.

This fella is looking at heavy traffic, not far away, on Tiansheng Road.

This one is back in a construction zone where I sometimes run.

Apparently, it was in China where dogs were first domesticated about 15,000 years ago. Later they were beloved by emperors, despised by Mao, assumed to be unaffordable by a few generations of poor peasants and factory workers, and, now, in the twenty-first century are welcomed warmly on city streets. At least on the streets of Beibei.  According to some web sites, Olympic-conscious  Beijing restricted dogs' presence in 2008, and other east coast cities  have heavily regulated pet ownership, especially of big dogs.

But farther west, here in Beibei, where the streets are less crowded  and where the one-child policy is alive and well (with single children possibly wanting playmates), dogs are everywhere. Everywhere. In public places, private ones, trotting, springing along. I see dogs and children alike squatting along the street, but the omnipresent yellow-jacketed street sweepers keep the sidewalks clean. 

Interesting to ponder what kind of barometer of both economics and various social practices dogs might be. Off the leash, these dogs seem relatively happy and benign. Ponder is all I can do, though, for I know what I see on the streets of Beibei isn't the whole story, even in Beibei. Apparently the proportion of rabid dogs in China is much higher than it is elsewhere in the world--for one, it's expensive to get rabies shots and licenses. And dogs are indeed sold for food, as I've witnessed myself in a faraway district:

It's an open question where the dogs come from for some of the existing abattoirs. Chinese animal activists have been known to intercept and unload trucks loaded with dogs headed for slaughter, if news stories such as this can be believed. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2289598/Caged-like-cattle-dogs-China-saved-seconds-slaughtered-dinner-table.html. 

It's not hard to find other sites deploring the abuse of dogs in China--here are two more that popped up when I googled "dogs in China" just now:
                  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/china-dogs
                  http://news.sky.com/story/1075143/china-dogs-clubbed-to-death-at-abattoirs 
 

But without defending some horrible places and practices in China, I wonder if the pot isn’t calling the kettle black just a little bit when Westerners point fingers. I wonder if Westerners' revulsion is in part because we’re used to seeing dogs in domestic settings. We’re no longer so used to seeing up close the chickens, pigs, salmon and other farmed and caged animals that many Westerners eat regularly, animals that may be subject to as bad or even worse conditions. Perhaps it's a matter of out of sight, out of mind. The same person who thinks nothing of buying KFC drumsticks or Tyson pre-skinned chicken breasts just might object to dogs for supper.

 Credit for chicken image: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://james-mcwilliams.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/chickens-in-cages.jpg&imgrefurl=http://james-mcwilliams.com/?p%3D2963&h=297&w=468&sz=76&tbnid=C-fAVWabFRy5NM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=142&zoom=1&usg=__Fi9IbwikyzbSuFXYl4Kk3pX9T0M=&docid=IgUTDxO_2hP5pM&sa=X&ei=lpKEUcCuAo7SqAHQ0YGAAg&ved=0CD4Q9QEwAw&dur=560

But, again as with so many things, the history of dogs here is thousands of years old--many, many thousands of years. And the spectrum of practices is mind-boggling. I offer no apology for the practices described in those news stories above, but I also have never seen such an overall happy population of  dogs as these active (but not hyperactive), free, spirited critters in Beibei.