On my first venture out into Fengyuan city I was surprised by the little dogs I was seeing, looking at them and wondering: "Is that dog a stray? Does it have an owner or what?" I really couldn't tell.
Later my boss took me on a scooter ride and we went up into the nearby mountains, literally just outside of the city. There were many stray dogs along the road. They would never be able to servive like that in the US, they'd be hit by cars. But because most people here are driving scooters, the dogs seem to survive just fine. This is true despite how they wonder into and out of the roads. These dogs I saw in the mountain though, they were certainly just thrown away by their owners. I saw several dogs running around with swollen and saggy utters and grotesquely swollen, I'm guessing in heat and infected vaginas as well. Apparently getting dogs neutered and spaded is not common practice here so I also saw a really cute puppy running in the woods, of course he has no hopes of any kind of future... he will grow up in the mountains and become infected with all kinds of diseases while eating trash to stay alive.
After returning to the city I took more notice of the dogs. Most of them are nervously aggressive and will run out and bark at people, however none of these dogs are oversized and are all more or less nervous. People here have no idea how to deal with them but if you just stand, face them and hiss with your hand up, telling them to stop, they will. No dog has attacked me or continued to chase me withing more than a six foot radius. I've probably had five or maybe less, but about five dogs run towards me barking so far. Of course there aren't many pedestrians like myself, most people are on scooters, so the dogs behaving this way is easily overlooked.
On the route that I've been running with my boss, though, there is much sadder story. I see a couple dogs tied up next to the road, continuously. I can only assume they are left there almost all day. Dogs cannot live this way. One of them, on the side of this road, was tied throughout the duration of the 1.5 hour run today and yesterday. Today there happened to be a pile of his own droppings, which he ran laps around on his 6 foot leesh tied to a wall. He didn't even bark at us, he just needed to exercise. Meanwhile a smaller dog a bit farther down the road was on a shorter leash and seemed to jump out at anything. His owner, or someone had dropped him a couple slices of white bread. I would not be surprised if that was all the dog got to eat each day.
As I was shopping in a crowded downtown today (a street with insane traffic) I spotted a dog in the shop. Very surprising, because of the way dogs are raised here they behave terribly. Because of this they have a bad reputation and people are afraid of them. But this dog was well off and well groomed, not unlike his attractive female owner shopping in the store. I was walking outside and there was a female stray. This bitch was a total slut, and she was in heat. The male dog smelt her inside and came running out as his owner yelled for him to come back. She didn't realize what he had found. The slutty stray saw him approach, sniffed for all of a half second, then stiffened up and put out for the big guy. He just thought, whoah, that was easy, and jumped on.
Noooooo! the last thing we need is more puppies. I should have intervened but I was in a state of shock, I've never seen such a slutty dog and she really assumed the position to be mounted for the male dog. I think when dogs hit the wild their minds must become even more perverted.
After a few humps the male dog was distracted by his owner calling and the stray wanted to play hard to get so nipped at him and took off the street. The owner came running out a moment later and began searching up and down the street wondering where her dog was. I pointed her in the right direction saying nothing more than the chinese word for dog. She was shocked by my use of Chinese but also in a hurry and said thank you then did a double take because I was a foreigner, but not while running after her dog.
In hind sight I'm a bit ashamed I didn't break the dogs up. The probable outcome here is that she will get her dog back but he will also be the proud new father of a litter of puppies that will all be strays. And he may even get an STD if dogs have those. I mean that's bad enough but there's also the potential that he could have gotten hit by a car or scooter while running after the stray, sadly I was not prepared to react and the little assistance I could provide was to direct the woman in the right direction.
Hopefully I be prepared to intervene if I see this type of situation occuring again. Taiwan needs a lot of help when it comes to raising their dogs, and there are quite a few of them here so it is a big problem.
I've gotten back into running recently myself and I've had a bit of a problem with aggressive dogs. I don't think they're strays, though. It seems like once you get just a little bit out of the center of the city, people just let their dogs roam around freely and the dogs get territorial about the street in front of their homes as well as the homes themselves. It's gotten a bit scary a couple of times when two or three started barking at me.
回覆刪除Do you ever run into that problem? If so, how do you deal with those dogs?
Hi, Mark.
回覆刪除Yea, I do have some helpful advice. I just wish I noticed this comment within a year of you posting it. I doubt you'll get the response, now.
Anyway, dogs are territorial. They also think instinctively. They want to protect their territory, but they don't want to get hurt. If they see you running towards them, then they're going to be defensive. If they see you running away, they may think you are scared and consider you prey.
Sometimes I am able to make stern eye contact with a dog and tell them with my eyes to back down. That doesn't work with all dogs, but it scares some back into thinking it's best if they leave me on my way. I'm sure if I got too close they'd still fight.
Other dogs, like people, are jerks. They will want to call your bluff and will bark louder. If I'm walking, I try to curl my shoulders forward a little, in a less offensive position. I still don't run away too quickly and I look directly at them for a little while. Although, I try not to intimidate them, I try to look at them softly as if saying, "I'm not scared, but I don't want to fight you either."
The trick is knowing how to talk to the dogs. Obviously, you're not going to bark. That leaves you with body language. Be aware of what you're saying and what you think the dog is thinking. If that doesn't work, run faster!