A man’s best friend!

Thimphu like any other place is dotted with stray dogs and to my relief just the other day; some youngsters came to trap them. Later in the evening they were released with a tag on their ears. It made me easier to identify them. I reside in the south of Thimphu city.

Well, the menace caused by the dogs late at night is irritating especially when you have someone ill at home. You feel like poisoning them to have some silence. But, thinking out of the box, these dogs are doing what they are supposed to do-bark! Bark at suspicious activities and people.

The barking is again aggravated by loitering people. I have identified some of the people. If it was not for the dogs, I wouldn't have words to make this update. The following are events which usually happen at nights.

The tapping boot makes me identify her as a working woman in her thirties after the disco hours.  The boot taps three times a week-Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. That’s when the barking ensues.

A young couple, I don’t know where they live but comes merrily at around midnight and lights a cigarette and stays near the car parking chatting (smilingly) with each other. Their movements make the dogs bark.

Some construction workers stay until 11 pm daily making loud noises in a typical Bengali accent and whenever their pitch goes a little high, the barking ensues.

An alto taxi arrives past midnight. He opens the door, counts his earnings with his right leg out on the road, completely drunk. Slams his car door hard and walks as if a child was asked to free write on paper. He resembles to that of a mask dancer as he is always half ‘Gho-ed’. His walking makes the dogs bark. He at times chases these dogs making me laugh my heads off.

A young man and a child of may be 8 or 9 makes the nightly walk and on their return, they are greeted with loud barks.  

A lady comes late at night in a taxi, pays the fare and looks around for dogs. If there aren’t any, she walks straight home to the next building. But if she spots some, she asks the taxi to reach her next to the stairway to her apartment.

My neighbor, who lives on the attic of where I stay, drives a posh car. She brings a lot of her friends’ home late at nights. As they chat and laugh while climbing the stairway, their noise wakes the dogs up and hence the barks.

My other neighbor, opens her curtains, lights a cigarette and puffs some fag, she throws the bud and pours water on it not to invite fire, I suppose. The sound of the water splashing on the floor wakes the dogs up. Again the barks!

These nocturnal barks of the dogs in a way helps people, cautioning them of the outside activities, certainly of some burglary and theft, late night squabbles and quarrels. Dogs as I have viewed them have made me love them and I do for the obvious reasons.

Not lastly, I can only conclude that ‘dogs are mans best friends’.