A Stray Dog along the M3

A stray dog along the M3
It may be that I am prejudiced but perhaps that is unavoidable in a society like South Africa. What may lead to me being seen as prejudiced is the following. It seems to me that whites in South Africa have a special relation to house animals, pets, especially dogs. Under the circumstances it may be understandable that dogs often have come to be the best protection against robberies and burglaries. Parks and streets are often full of dogs and their owners, on leash or free to run as they like. They are often not so well controlled by the owner and it happens not so seldom that dogs would run at you or jump on to you, dirtying your clothes.

The owners are almost always whites. And unfortunately, being harassed by a dog does not necessarily mean that master or mistress would intervene or apologise. Not at all, at several occasions both I and my wife have experienced this: the owner just looks at you as if you should accept that the dog just now is dirtying your clothes and in fact is threatening you.

There is a history with dogs as the human’s best friend. I don’t mind that as long as others are left in peace and as long as humans are treated with at least as much respect as dogs. This is not always the case in South Africa.

So listen carefully; not very long ago I heard somebody phone in on Radio 567, a local radio station here in Cape Town. He had driven his car early in the morning along the M3, which is the highway from the southern parts of the peninsula leading towards the city centre. It is a beautiful drive along the mountain slopes with plenty of lush green alleys and parks.

The caller/driver was concerned about a stray dog that he had seen at 6h30 in the morning on his way to work. He felt an inner urge to help this poor creature. Live on radio ha said roughly this: I know that you are very busy on your programme but could you not allow us to report in to you when we find lost pet animals like this dog? I really feel something must be done. First I thought it was a joke but to my surprise the well-known broadcaster John Nathan answered that he well understood the need to help such animals but if he started to let callers in he might have to handle perhaps fifty in a day and chaos would occur.

What surprised me was that John Nathan even spent time on such an issue, but I should have understood that I had run into a culture which is there but that I don’t know much about. It is to me very strange. Dogs seem to occupy a very prominent place in people’s lives. It is fine as long as they are well trained and drilled and cruelty against animals is criminal. But here there is something more to it. There is a kind of dog culture in the white community and it is thriving. This is hard to take when I on a daily basis am confronted with poor and homeless people in the streets and in the parks who apparently are less of a concern to many people (in all groups that is).

I thought the poor dog should have been reasonably happy with having gone astray close to the mountain on a near forestry area.