Our favorite animal in our residential complex is a grumpy old dog we call Pups for lack of creativity. He would always be sunbathing or lying in the shade under cars in front of our building during the day. The first time he met each of us he barked but them after realizing we would scratch his head and stomach become calmly friendly, always trotting up with wagging tail and sniffing around any shopping bags we might be carrying to check if there was anything for him. Other neighbors seemed to like him as well, stopping their cars beside him to roll down their windows and scratch his head, asking How are you, my son? He was wholly harmless; the only physical altercation he got into in front of us was with a crazy-ass cat who sent him away yelping.
At night, though, he turn vigilante and enjoyed hiding in the bushes and then howling at anyone who passed by after curfew. Evidently this pissed off enough neighbors that one day last week, I heard him yelping and looked out the window to see two men in municipality polo shirts trying to get him out from under a car and into a grey hearse-like vehicle using one of those lasso-ended poles. He managed to give them the slip and run off just as a lady from my building came out asking what was going on, what were they doing. One of the men ignored her entirely and got behind the wheel of the hearse to drive it around to the other side of the complex; the other, left on foot to walk in the direction Pups had fled, just said brusquely that the neighbors complained and they didn't want to do this either but they had to. A little while later the hearse drove back past and out of the complex.
I asked the unhelpful complex security guard and then the very helpful employees of the mini market inside the complex if there was anything I could do to get him back and would they kill him. They laughed and said no, the neighbors had been complaining about his night howls so they'll just give him vaccinations (he had a tag on his ear already, but evidently old) and something to calm him down (??) and then bring him back.
My girlfriend was skeptical of this claim, and the fact that the phone numbers for the possibly Orwellianly-named municipal "Street Animal Rehabilitation Center" were not functional, along with news of police killing beloved street dogs for no reason in a nearby neighborhood, did nothing to allay concerns. The men from the municipality showed up a few days later together with a vet for something else and I asked them what became of the dog. As brusquely as usual, they told me that they hadn't caught him, he'd escaped. Then why haven't I seen him since the day you came? I asked, and they didn't bother to answer. I asked the super after a few more days of no Pups and he said yes the municipality took him but they just gave him vaccines and dropped him back off. He was back in the neighborhood, just hanging out behind the building nowadays but he would come back out front.
Why the contradictory stories? Was everybody lying in that weird Middle Eastern way where people think that they are softening the blow of a death by just denying it happened?
That was what I thought until last night when I heard a familiar howl from the woods behind the building. The area is inaccessibly fenced off, a shared backyard for the neighbors living on the ground floor, and in the dark and through the tree cover I couldn't see anything.
But then tonight, another howl and then, from our balcony, we watched as Pups came trotting over like nothing had happened to a neighbor's back door to where she (probably a she) had moved his food bowls, which used to be out front.
My theory is that Pups did indeed get away from the municipality and then our neighbor took him into her back yard to hide him from the Man and put a collar on him for good measure to show he wasn't a street animal that they had jurisdiction over. The super must have seen the municipality vehicle come and then seen Pups a few days later and figured they had caught then released him. My faith in the neighborhood is restored.
It would be nice if he could come out front so we could play with him again, but I suppose better that he is protected from the street animal gestapo. Maybe I will go downstairs and introduce myself to the neighbor and ask if we can go into her back yard to play with Pups. Play is a strong word--unfortunately he has no idea how to play fetch or inclination to chase flying object, but we could go give him a scratching.
