Pazi Pas: on Dogs

We were rather saddened to hear that the dog belonging to our neighbors on Krk had died. It actually went along with the death of the old goatherd, who had been looking after the old, blind, wheezing dog. Not to worry, opined one of the other villagers, the dog was really old, “maybe six or seven”. In a way, that about sums it up for dogs in the Balkans, and I guess much of southern Europe: a dog does very well if it makes it to six. This shocks the likes of me: my first dog lived to 13 (hobbling, deaf, blind, epileptic, no bladder control, constant visits to the vet in the last years) and my sisters two dogs just died a few months ago aged about 14 (blind, deaf, wheezing and living only for their daily carrot), my other sister has a dog that thrives aged about 9 and going strong(ish).

So we have a dog, as readers will know. And I must admit that now that we have a baby, she is less of a princess than she was, but she still: lives in the house, very often sleeps on our bed, eats only dog food, regularly goes to the doctor, has a passport, travels with us most everywhere, and is generally part of the family. To pacify both G. and her family, we bought a dog house for outside, and I went along at least vaguely with intentions to have her live outside, but I just couldn’t do it: making a seen week old puppy live outside in February just didn't gel. I don’t think I’m so unusual in that I love my dog like a family member, and indeed most Germans, British, Americans, Canadians, Swiss, etc. would heartily agree. Perhaps on farms, people would be a bit less coochie-coo about the animals, but on the whole, people where I come from and where I live behave similarly. Germany, on the whole, is extreme: dogs can more or less go everywhere – we’ve found only one or two restaurants in Germany that don’t allow them – and I’ve heard it said that people are often more welcoming of dogs than children, which is an exaggeration, but not a very gross one.

This is, however, clearly not the case in Serbia, or elsewhere in southern Europe, for that matter. I had, for a time, a relationship with a Spanish woman, and she mentioned one day in passing that she had “dogs” at home. “Oh”, I said, “what are their names?” She gave me a strange look, and said that they didn’t really have names, or that we called them this or that, but it didn’t matter, they were just dogs. Same kind of thing in Serbia: vague memories of dogs one had as a child, inconsistent names, not trained, and “umm…. I can’t remember what happened to him; he ran away, I think”. Of course people love their dogs, but somehow the relationships are most distant: they seem to be only rarely allowed in the house, and even people with flats often condemn (cruelly I think) dogs to live on some tiny balcony.

G’s mother is convinced that our dog caries terrible
germs, and when visiting tells us 2-3 times daily that the dog hair (abundant in the house when she sheds) will be terrible for the baby. I must admit she has a point: their dog regularly walks unattended around the neighborhood and smells like a tramp’s underpants, because she has almost never had a bath, and regularly eats garbage only after she has rolled in it. I wouldn’t let that feral animal anywhere near our baby. In contrast, I believe our dog, who is virtually never unsupervised, to be a lot cleaner than many people I know.


Croatia, though similar in attitude, seems however to be on the turn, at least on the coast. There seem to be a lot more dog-friendly people, and the general trend that they are banned from public places seems to be over-turning. As recently as last spring, one could see harsh warnings that all dogs must be on a leash and muzzled at all times in public, but I haven’t seen so many this summer. Not surprising, I guess, as a large fraction of the tourists are (of course) Germans, and think that if little Maxi-schen can’t come with us, we won’t spend anything.

Perhaps, in any case, G's mother is on the turn too. During a recent visit to Germany we caught her sitting on our sofa with the dog at her feet ("they were cold"), and she spent three days babysitting our daughter alone on Krk and was seemingly very appreciative of Monitsa's amazing instinct to guard the baby and all associated with her.