The Vanuatu Aelan attitude towards dogs, pussycats, and other pets varies greatly from the American attitude. Dogs especially seem to attract the most attention when an American comes to Vanuatu and observes how the pets are treated. In the main, animals are left to their own devices to fend for themselves the best they can. For dogs this means they roam around the village as they wish, they are rarely fed by their owners except scraps tossed out to them at meal times, they are never picked up, cuddled, or petted, and their injuries and pests are almost never treated. Dogs are useful when they form a hunting pack with a person at the lead to go into the bush to hunt wild pigs. Wild pigs are a menace in that they can hurt people and destroy gardens which are necessary for feeding your family or providing cash crops. Other than hunting pigs, I have not observed any real need for dogs and little observable affection for them. The American need for a dog or cat is to have a bond and a friend, which can get a little obsessive especially when you refer to your pet as a child.
One of the really good things that I have observed about dog ownership here is that dogs are unrestrained and live more social lives with each other. Instead of being constrained to one house, on a leash every time they leave the house, and needing a human to walk behind them picking up their waste - they just roam around as they will. This does mean a lot of fights between dogs because in general dogs are aggressive towards each other over territory. But it also means dogs can live a life closer to what is in their nature which I think is a vast improvement on the American fashion of dog ownership.
When it comes to discipline this is a hard issue for an American observer because discipline is to use a voice command but to also stone the dog; to throw stones, or whatever is in your hand. I think that at first this is shocking but once you DIVE into the culture you realize that there is no real menace behind the discipline. This is not beating a dog for the sake of inflicting pain or to vent your own frustrations on a smaller animal. This is correcting behavior in a manner which is more closely related to pack discipline. In a dog or wolf pack, when behavior is corrected it is done with teeth and claws. In the human pack, the discipline lasts only as long as the undesired behavior does. For me, I have never wanted to hit a dog other than to give a whack on the nose which I don't consider to be harmful. Once my ex-husband hit my dog for discipline and I lost my mind over that. In Vanuatu, the normal kind of discipline and behavior correction that I would use at home; positive reinforcement, working with the dog regularly to teach them signals and behavior, just doesn't work. It's hard to explain why the American method of training a dog doesn't work here but mostly it comes down to the environment and the social structure of dogs and humans.
As for feeding the dogs only scraps it is a hard thing for an American to see when we are accustomed to spending thousands of dollars each year on food for our own pets. In the islands of Vanuatu it is hard enough getting together the cash you need to pay for school fees or to grow the food you need to feed your own family much less the burden of feeding a dog. I personally agree with the American point of view that if this is a pet you've taken into your household you are responsible for their well being. But that is not the island culture. As a result you will see many underfed dogs.
Pussycats are actually useful and much more self sufficient than dogs. Whereas dogs can't fend for themselves very well and rely entirely on the food provided by humans, pussycats are more than capable of hunting for themselves. In many places around the world household cats are considered to be a nuisance because of their hunting skills. Here in the islands where rats are an invasive species that can decimate a crop of fruits or spoil your food in your home as well as spread disease, controlling the rat population is essential. Not to mention, cats are much easier and cheaper to feed if you wanted to. Simply by their size of being much smaller they eat far less than dogs and it is cheap to buy a can of tuna for a cat whereas a dog would need several cans to be full. I can feed my cat one can of tuna, split into two meals, at 120 vt / day. Times that by 3-4 cans for a dog and you begin to see the price difference. While that may not sound like much, approximately 100 vt = $1, I am living on on a very small allowance which doesn't give me any room to splurge.
The Peace Corps volunteers are not paid a salary and do not get any of the benefits of being employed such as money being socked away in a 401K. We get a living allowance that is set at the same level of income as the community we serve in - which is typically the poverty level. Life can be lonely and hard when you're immersed in a culture not your own. A pet who is a friend without reservation can be a lifesaver - sometimes literally. I don't know how to stress how hard it is to immerse in a culture different from your own and be expected to behave according to their cultural norms. I very much would love to see every American who says an immigrant to the U.S. has to assimilate to our way of life to then live by their own words and do the same, to go to a new country and assimilate fully. But I digress - a volunteer has little money to spend each month and taking on the extra expense of a pet is a decision that should not be made lightly. It is telling when you have to choose between paying for food and care for your pet and your own needs.
But the most important item to consider when taking on a pet is not its usefulness, your ability to feed him or her, or even the cost of care - it is the fact that your service is for 2 years. What happens to the pet afterward? Do you tap into your personal money to ship the pet home with you? Some people do. Do you find a home for it in your community? Or does the pet just get abandoned to live the best they can because no one wants to take in your ill-mannered pet?
It is not just unfair on the pet to bond with a person and then be abandoned, it is unfair on the community to leave them with a dog that doesn't behave like an island dog. It leaves a bad reputation of Peace Corps and White People, because I have found that my actions somehow represent the actions of all White People. And I am consistently treated based on the bias of what my community thinks a White Person thinks, wants, or can handle. Eventually the dog may end up being killed because his behavior goes from being a nuisance to a threat. Yes, it is harsh. But guess what, in the States when a dog attacks a person it is put down and the exact same happens here.
When I came to site I was cautiously optimistic that I would be inheriting two dogs from two former volunteers. The dogs became attached to me most likely because I'm white and live in the same house as the other white people who took care of them. But it's not going to work out because these are some very ill mannered dogs whose behavior has crossed the line into dangerous. In an effort to 'protect' me they attack any man who comes near me. If they were to succeed in biting anyone and drawing blood I would be required to pay restitution as well as the dogs being killed not to mention I don't want anyone getting hurt! So I stone them when they try to attack a person. The dogs behavior is so bad that they will attack and chase anything that moves; people, cows, pigs, chickens, and cats. I work out of the Dispensary, the clinic, and people will not approach the clinic when I am there because they are afraid of these dogs.
The nuisance behavior of these two dogs is jumping up on you and coming into areas they are not allowed such as on mats when people are eating. Jumping on a person is mostly likely a result of being picked up and cuddled as puppies and then as the dog gets older it expects to be petted and handled. But that simply isn't the island way and when I leave these dogs they have to acceptable to the community. So I don't pet them, I don't let them jump on me, and I don't let them crawl into my lap. Not only are they too big for this behavior but it is also completely outside of the norm for an island dog. I've seen the pictures of the first owner of the first dog to be adopted by a Peace Corps volunteer at this site and even full size the volunteer would pick up the dog. Treating the dog like a child, like a cuddle toy, in the American fashion, and then leaving is not acceptable. I then get the fun task of dealing with the consequences. Joy.
What I first tried to change the behavior of these dogs I wanted to impose island values and discipline. I don't allow them inside the house, to go after people, or to jump on me. I generally whack the nose or use a fly swatter to give a swat on the butt, or I just use my body to force them out of the house ahead of me as I use the 'get out command' of kushe. The only time I've thrown something at them is when they try to attack people. But as much as they have begun to listen to me about some stuff like not coming in the house they refuse to obey when I try to call them off when they go for the attack. It's gotten to the point where I am fed up and do not want them around me any more. Instead I hang out with my new cat.
Yes, I have taken in a pussycat. So after all of that about how unfair it is to the pet, about the hardship of a pet, why you may ask did I take in a pussycat? Because the cat is cheaper to feed and is necessary in keeping my house rodent free. The first night the cat was in my house he caught and ate the mouse that had been getting into my food. One small tin of tuna is two meals for the cat. And I don't actually own him. He is being lent to me by her actual owner. When I leave, or really at anytime, the pussycat has a permanent home to go back to. In general pussycats are better than dogs because it is hard to instill in them bad behavior that will be a nuisance or danger to the community. They are essential in keeping down the rodent population. Seriously, why don't the dogs go after the rats??? And they are generally self sufficient.
The pussycat has been an enormous help to me emotionally and practically. When just one of the dogs, Andy or Mbos, was around they would not bother the cat. Mbos is a cat chaser but he followed my discipline and wouldn't go after the cat. Andy mostly seemed indifferent. But when both dogs were together, for whatever reason, they then decided to gang up on the cat tries to eat her. Now those dogs are banned from my house or coming near me.
It was actually pretty funny the first time Mbos, the second dog, faced off with Sookie, the cat. The cat was inside the house, I was in front of her, and Mbos was on the porch looking in through the open door. Mbos had gotten to learn my rule about not entering the house so she sat there on the porch just vibrating from tension. She would look at the cat and her ears would prick up and you can see that she wanted to chase that cat in the worst way. Then she would look up at me and her ears would lay flat and she knew that get to the cat she had to get by me and break my 'no entering the house' rule which she was not willing to do. So that went on a half dozen times before Mbos came to a decision to ignore the cat and sit on the porch facing outward.
So that is my experience so far with the island pets. If your interested, there is a non-profit in Villa, the capital city, which will give care to dogs, Sam's Animal Welfare. But on my island and most of the islands of Vanuatu, there is no one available to give care to the pets. Stores do not sell pet food or supplies and there are no veterinarians. I would be remiss if I didn't point out that in addition to my own observations of dog and cat ownership that some people in the country have an entirely different use for dogs and cats - as food.
One volunteer on another island has had to deal with her community killing and eating dogs in front of her. My host family here, when we went on an overnight trip to a kava garden far into the bush during my walk-about week, went hunting with their pack for pig and came back with a wild cat; for dinner. My mentor, another volunteer, sat down had some with them. I did not.
That's the spectrum of how Americans and ni-Vans will view dogs and cats. Americans are on the end of the spectrum where the pets are called children and ni-Vans are on the other end where the dogs and cats are occasionally food and occasionally a household companion.
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