Halfway down the Danube

Dogs good and otherwise

Lot of dogs in our neighborhood.

That's nothing unusual, of course. There are lots of dogs all over Bucharest. One reason is that Romanians really like dogs. Another is that, since the fall of Communism, crime has increased. It's still pretty low by American standards, but it's high enough that everyone is worried about it. So people get dogs.

Almost every house in our neighborhood has a dog or two. There are a few that stand out, though.

The Neighborhood Dog -- The neighborhood dog is a nondescript mixed-breed. It looks vaguely like a collie but is mostly black with odd bits of brown.

It belongs to the people next door to us (who are running a piping and plumbing company out of their house... long story). But they let it run free all day long. This is unusual in our neighborhood, where most of the dogs are kept behind fences. So it's sort of the whole neighborhood's dog.

It's a good dog. It rarely barks, and never at people. It's friendly, if not exactly effusive. Most of the time it just wanders slowly around the neighborhood. It has a slightly thoughtful, distracted air about it, like a professor who's trying to remember where he left his glasses.

The other morning I watched it for several minutes. It was just standing in the middle of the street. I want to say that it was frowning thoughtfully. We'll put aside the question of whether I had anything better to do than watch a dog from a window, because actually, it was quite interesting, okay?

Sometimes the neighbors go away for the weekend. Then they lock the dog in their yard, which is tiny and piled high with plastic piping and plumbing supplies. They leave food and water, but the dog is alone in a very small space, and after a day or two it begins to crack. More than one Sunday afternoon has been made dismal by the howls of the poor dog, cramped and alone.

The neighbors leave the dog out at night. So in winter, it looks for a warm door. I've sometimes gone outside on cold winter nights to find it standing patiently outside our gate. If I open the gate, it comes quietly inside and lies down, with a great deal of dignity, in front of our doorway.

It's not very interested in Alan and David, but it allows them to get close and pet it. Clearly it knows about small children. It endures their attentions with patience and never growls or snaps. When it's had enough, it walks slowly away.

It's a good dog.

The Snappy Dog -- The snappy dog lives around the corner, near the intersection of Strada Bruxelles and Strada Washington. (Yes, Bucharest has a Strada Washington. Under Communism, the maps all showed that it was named after that great revolutionary George Washington.)

It's a bad dog. Oh, not a very bad dog, but it's a showoff and a bully. It won't bother me or Claudia, but it likes barking and lunging at Alan and David, because they're small. I can't easily forgive this. Also, it becomes much louder and braver when its owners are around. If they're outside, it will lunge for your pants cuff. Or if it's safe behind its fence, it will raise the roof with its threats. Meet it in the street alone and it will slink away.

I have occasionally considered hitting the Snappy Dog hard with a thrown rock. Then maybe the next time I walk past, it will think again before frightening my boys. But that wouldn't be a very neighborly thing to do.

The White Dog -- The white dog lives on the other side of us from the Neighborhood Dog. It's another mixed-breed (okay, they're all mixed-breed) with perhaps a bit of pit bull. Since it's between us and Strada Dorobant', we walk past it a couple of times each day.

It's not a bad dog, but it does have one trick it likes to play. If we're walking past its yard, and we're not paying attention, sometimes it will suddenly jump at its side of the fence, barking madly. If we jump -- and if it catches you while you're thinking about something else, you'll jump, all right -- it sits back down with an unmistakeable air of satisfaction.

If you are paying attention, it won't even try. Make eye contact with it, and it will look away. "What, me?"

It doesn't get out much, and it's bored, so I can't really hold this against it.

The Batsh*t-Crazy Dog -- The Crazy Dog lives down Strada Brasilia, about four blocks south from us. We only run into it when we go to the Deutsche Kneipe, which is maybe once or twice a month.

It's a very bad dog. It's the sort of dog that really, seriously wants to bite you. And it's unpredictable... sometimes it will back away if you just glare at it, other times it will charge. Like most dogs, it's braver when its pack is around; there are two or three other dogs that sometimes hang with it, and they'll really get each other going. But even when it's alone, you don't want to turn your back on it.

It's a yellowish dog, not very big, with eyes that seem a bit too close together, and a mouth that's always drawn back in a snarl. It likes to lurk under parked cars, so you're never sure if it's around or not.

I have seriously considered pegging that dog with a thrown rock. A big thrown rock. And neighborliness be damned. In fact, a couple of times I've picked a rock up, ready to go. But every time I do that, the dog either isn't around, or just snarls from a distance. It definitely knows about rocks.

What bugs me is that the Crazy Dog obviously belongs to someone. I can understand owning a dog like the Snappy Dog, that's a big showoff. But you have to be some kind of asshole to own a dog that really wants to bite people, and then let it run free in the street.

Well, there are jerks everywhere. In Romania, they're just more likely to own dogs.

And those are some of the dogs in our neighborhood.

Posted by douglas at September 23, 2005 10:55 PM