A Dog Die Afternoon

Every mile-long walk home from school was punctuated with the earnest desire to not see something unspeakably terrible. The whimpering mutt was a discarded mop-head lying on his side in a half-ditch about a block from our concrete box of a home. His front legs had been smashed flat by the tires of a meandering truck whose driver did not see him lurking in the shadows (and who subsequently stepped on the gas and blew off into the distance). All this miserable wretch could do was lie there and communicate his pain to disinterested passersby in low and steady streams of agony. The fact that nobody in the neighborhood came around to help him in any way, let alone claim him as their own, was significant if not surprising.

Animals that U.S. Americans domesticate and treat like privileged family members eke out lives of utter despair in Honduras. In a society where people are mostly ill-equipped to take care of themselves and one another, it is little surprise that cats and dogs are not exactly a caregiving priority. In fact, one could see the limping, scabbed, deer-in-headlights-looking curs that cluster around every snack stand and mini-market in Cofradia as a twisted metaphor for the men, women, and children of this town. Both species are psychologically and physically damaged by poverty and neglect, bear the scars of treatable skin conditions akin to the tropics, and have a constantly fearful and suspicious gaze. 

I stood there for a few minutes, nearly alone on the street, just watching this poor dog's torturous descent into extinction, and resisting tears. It could have just as easily been an abandoned, wounded baby, or an old man with his limbs crushed by the same truck that was probably traveling recklessly. 

All of a sudden, around the corner, came Emily, our vegetarian fifth-grade teacher with a deep love for all animals (she would go so far as to gingerly remove spiders from her house with her bare hands and could never be seen swatting at a mosquito). Emily appeared more distressed than she was while teaching her extremely difficult and insubordinate students, and at a loss for a way to help. She looked at the dying, mangled dog heap, paced around in circles, began to whimper herself, and loudly proclaimed, "What is wrong with people here? Does anybody care?" I felt it was not the time to offer my analysis of how the inexorable cruelties of capitalist oppression and inequality harden people and distort their best impulses into something less than compassion and selflessness. Emily could not bear the thought of the basest insect suffering, so seeing a creature higher on the food chain in such an awful condition could have pushed her over the edge. I tried to calm her thoughts, struggled to say something sincerely useful, and kept being met with looks of resentment, as if trying to console a woman who just lost a loved one and pretending to know the immediacy and nuances of that pain. Emily reached down and petted the dog on his back in several generous, broad strokes. She spoke to him like a hospice nurse would to a terminal cancer patient, but with the utter conviction that, somehow, this would turn out okay.

I just stood there and marveled at this young woman's uncanonized sainthood, and, at the same time, questioned why I was not more upset and moved by this unfortunate circumstance. Was I so hardened by my own experience with pain and suffering in life?

In the end, after more loud ranting at the people of our town in general for their cruel neglect and seemingly heartless attitude to suffering lesser beasts in their midsts, with the sun sinking rapidly into the horizon like the hull of a torpedoed ship, Emily decided that all she could do was leave a little dish of water and walk away. It was clear that no veterinarian could be found, and enough people had walked by without even glancing at the mutt to indicate that help was not forthcoming from any Honduran.

I doubt that Emily will ever forget this episode, and that it will continue to haunt her dreams and daytime thoughts for many years to come. I doubt that Emily will ever forgive the people of Cofradia for unanimously turning their backs on this burdened beast.