My discomfort in this country reached new heights last week. Last Sunday night my roommate Jess walked in with a sad look on her face. She had two little puppies, in plastic bags, under each arm. They couldn’t have been more than a couple weeks old.
She had brought them home from Minister Wande, her boss’ house. They were in bad shape, to say the least. To start, their mother had stopped feeding them milk. They were beyond listless, imminent death clearly gripped them. They were also filthy, and covered with fleas. She planned to keep them overnight, to bathe and feed them before returning them to the minister’s house.
We washed them and tried to get some of the fleas off them, and named them Fatty and Flaco – Fatty being the robust one, Flaco being the really sick and skinny one. It was clear that they would need to stay longer than a night to become healthy enough to survive. Jess and I share a room, so the first night the puppies slept with us. Well you know what comes next. I woke up to dog pee and poop all over the bedroom. Fatty had diarrhea.
The second night I told Jess I just couldn’t handle living in a room full of dog excrement. The problem was that after just a day of food, Fatty became very energetic and constantly wanted to play with his brother. Well poor Flaco was in no mood to be bitten, so he would bark. We had to separate them, both to get some sleep and to allow Flaco to rest. Fatty and his diarrhea would have to sleep in another room. I was far from thrilled, but it was an improvement.
The next night we discovered what was the problem with Flaco. He had worms. Needless to say my concern over living in a room where the dog shat grew considerably at this news. We thought the likelihood of finding the right drugs for him to be about zero. Since he was so young, we were worried even doggie deworming drugs would be fatal. We asked aardvark, got a hold of Vets without Borders, got some medicine for Flaco, and hoped he would survive the night.
He did, but the worms didn’t. I woke up to a new level of disgusting. Puddles of worm filled dog poo, all over the room (thankfully on Jess’ side of the room). The stench was overpowering, and I’d slept in it. No more dogs in the room, this was the end of my tolerance. Four days later Flaco is still weak, we’re not sure he will make it. Fatty’s gone home; he was driving us crazy with his puppy energy levels.
I can fully understand Jess’ initial reaction to do something to help them, especially since she could. But then you have to ask yourself; well you have to ask yourself a lot of things. First and foremost, how much good is a day or a week or even a month of care going to do? They are just going to return to the same environment that brought them to this state. But how many children and people in this country die easily preventable deaths because of a lack of access to medical care and medicine? Aren’t people more important than puppies?
Why do we often have more sympathy for cute furry things instead of our own species?
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