There is
an enormous pile of dog poo outside my front door.
Not my
front door in England , but the
door of the little casita I’ve rented for a week in Orgiva in the Alpujarras in
southern Spain .
As I
eyeball it, the pile in question seems to be actually sitting on my next-door neighbour’s
territory, that is if any of us are allowed to claim jurisdiction of the street
in the first place. But in our narrow cul-de-sac,
my door is without question the closest door to the deposits of a very large
dog – or a smaller one who has been saving up all week.
As the nearest resident to the unmissable
feature on the pavement that now needs to be manoeuvred around, it must be my
responsibility to commence emergency removal procedures. But I
don’t possess a trowel, much less a spade, nor have I the stomach to use hands
and a (jumbo) plastic bag.
Is anyone watching my hesitation? I look nervously around at all the
windows. But there again, in this town
generally there appears to be a laissez-faire attitude not just to the passings of dogs, but their passage as well.
They run freely through the streets, without identifying collars,
sometimes alone or in pairs, sometimes following their owners, or even sitting
obediently at cafes. So far, they have been gentle and unmenacing. A majority of them spend
their entire lives outside, and start up a yowling echoing chorus at intervals
during the night.
There is a different way with dogs here. I can’t help thinking about the black sports
bag in the cafe of the bus station in Malaga
yesterday. Plonked on the chair beside a
woman in a green wool coat, it independently started up a routine of quiverings
and tremblings. It lolled around on the seat.
It lurched dangerously close to the edge.
A tidbit was fed through its zip.
Then another. Its interior concealed the small white
curly-haired dog I’d seen in the woman’s arms half an hour before. The pooch was packed, ready for
transportation.
And I
remember the words of a bar owner in another Spanish town that I visited last
autumn. “Carolina is bad, very bad,” he had said. Carolina
was tiny, adorable, and chained outside to the leg of a bar-football
table. “Loli, her mother, is very
good. She doesn't chase cars like Carolina
does. But Carolina , you are very bad.” And he frowned and wagged his finger at her. Loli and Carolina
were Chihuahuas , Carolina a puppy of 56 days old.
Back in
Orgiva, later in the day, I meet a charming elderly neighbour who lives
opposite me. She tells me she is pleased I am staying in the little house – it once belonged to her family. We exchange more pleasantries and then it is
time to seize the moment. I point to the
offending heap only a metre and a half from where we are standing, the huge brown blot in the cul-de-sac of light-coloured stone
and whitewashed houses. I ask her what I can do. She shrugs her shoulders, and says that the street
will be cleaned. Or the rain will wash
it away.
Or at
least, I think that’s what she says.
I’m off
the hook. And I’m hoping for a short but
well-aimed shower during the night.
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