To the dogs

Every Friday I take the bus an hour outside of Wonju to my second middle school. It is located in a very small town and the school only has 30 students total. Every Friday I get on and off the bus at the same stop. And every time I see the same small white and black dog hanging around. She is super friendly and always comes over for pets or scraps of food. She is also very dirty and never on a leash. In Korea this is very common. There are lots of dogs (and cats) that run around the streets by themselves. While the cats are feral, I think most of the dogs I see have owners. It is very uncommon to see a dog on a leash though. In Korea pet dogs don't have to stay on leashes. I don't know if the dogs are smarter because of this, and know to stay out of the street, or if in reality more dogs get hit by cars here, but whenever I see them, they look really happy and somehow manage to stay out of traffic. They are also usually pretty scruffy.

I'm starting to become really attached to this dog I see every week. At first I thought it must have an owner, but the more I see it, I realize she is really dirty. One time I went to pet her too and she got really afraid, like she had been hit or kicked before. I started to think that maybe she was a stray. I really want to take her home with me. I don't know how I'd do it, I guess I'd have to call a taxi because I couldn't take her on the bus. I don't know how she would react either, being taken away from her home. I took a picture of her last week. Today I showed some of the students and teachers, asking them if they knew the dog and who it belonged to. Although the teachers didn't recognize her, some of the students did. They said she is the "meat store dog" -- I assume this means she is owned by people who run the meat shop, which is right next to the bus station. So that solves the dilemma for me. I can't take her home. But I still really want to! I feel so bad for her. One male student I showed the picture to said "I kicked that dog" and laughed.

Its difficult for me to accept the position of dogs and cats in Korea. It is definitely a clash of cultures, the way Westerners think of pets compared to Koreans. Here it is very strange to have a cat or dog at home. Dogs are becoming more normal, especially cute little dogs, but to have a cat is still super strange, even disgusting to people. If you do have a pet, it is usually not "apart of the family" as we think of it at home. That's why this poor little pup is left outside all day, dirty and sometimes gets kicked. I hope she has a warm place to sleep at night because it is getting cold. Maybe her owners are nice to her? Maybe she enjoys being able to run free, because with me she'd be all cooped up inside. I have to remind myself there are millions of dogs in the world that are not treated well. At home there are so many, I don't need to pick one up in Korea.

The other hard part about dogs in Korea is that they eat them. Yes, it is true, dogs are eaten as food here. Its mostly in the rural areas, definitely not in the cities, and many people are now starting to think this is not good. But the old grandmas and papas think it is fine and tasty. While I do think this is very sad, I try to hold my judgement. I am a guest in a foreign country. I am not one to comment on another's practices. I recently read online that someone was trying to start an anti-dog meat petition in Korea, many people's heated responses were similar to my own, it is not our place as foreigners to cause trouble and critize. Still it is extremely saddening when on the bus home from Wonju today I will pass by a restraunt that outside has four cages, each with a dog in them. They are not pets. Only a certain breed is raised for eating, in the same way you would raise a pig or a cow. I know it is only because of the society and culture that I grew up and live in that I think a dog is above an animal that is also intelligent, a pig, (I guess a dog is a little more cute and cuddly too), but it is still hard to see.

It's interesting to me to that today on the cover of the online NY Times there is an article about a dog mistakenly being euthanized by an animal shelter. Apparently this dog helped save some American soldiers from a suicide bomber in Afghanistan. They then took her home with them to Arizona to live but she broke out of their yard, got picked up by the shelter and because she didn't have a microchip or ID, coupled with a mix up on the part of the shelter (how do you miss-identify a dog for euthination?!) she was put under. The article is super sob worthy, of course a horrible ordeal for any family. Yet I can't help thinking about how there are so many dogs in bad situations in Korea. Or in Italy. I remember when I studied there that there was a term for when a dog is left abandoned on the road at the end of spring, when families take off for summer vacation and cannot take their pets nor leave them cooped up at home. American ideas/ideals about pets are very different from the rest of the world.