In Memoriam

The Peace Corps experience can be a mixed bag.  Sometimes you engage in awesome, life-changing experiences that teach you new things and help you grow as a person, and other times, well… shit just sucks.  Between these two types of experiences, I would venture that having a two-month old puppy die in your arms falls into the latter category.

Let me back up a bit.  Last week, and some of the week prior, I had a puppy.  Her name, as given to her by her previous owner, was Sporty (it was a working title).  She was the puppy of another PCV’s dog, and, since taking care of an entire litter is not really possible for the average Peace Corps Volunteer, I offered to give her a good home.  Most importantly, though, she was cute.  Like, really cute.  I think the pictures speak for themselves (in case you can't tell, she's the tan one with the white paw).  I spent much of the weekend bonding with her, and, before I knew it, I was heading back to site with her in tow, stuffed somewhat uncomfortably into an impromptu doggie carrier I had MacGyver-ed out of a half-unraveled wicker basket and a kanga (a short, cheap cut of fabric).

The bus ride back home was, in short, nightmarish.  There’s nothing like taking a two-hour walk through town to the main bus stand with an unwilling, un-housebroken puppy in a broken basket, and there’s definitely nothing like sitting for multiple hours on a crowded bus with the same unwilling, un-housebroken puppy with no means of restraint but your own two hands.  By the end of the ordeal, both she and I were hungry, dehydrated, exhausted, demoralized, and covered in dog excrement.  Still, I took some solace in the fact that she was actually slightly better behaved during the ride than the baby sitting next to me, which ultimately helped draw attention away from the fact that I had brought a freaking dog on the bus (a scene somewhat atypical in Tanzania, if not everywhere).

The next few days saw a rapid progression in my mental state regarding my new dog---from being excited for my new puppy, to wanting to strangle my new puppy, to desperately trying to save my new puppy’s life.  Although, for all intents and purposes, she seemed healthy, she had actually just recently recovered from a serious illness that wiped out much of the litter; this meant that, upon our arrival at my site, I was dealing with a puppy that was not only an emotional trainwreck from the trip but also physically weak from her previous affliction.  Both these aspects of her current mental and physical state made themselves abundantly clear within the first five minutes of her being in the house, primarily through her compulsive nervous chewing, whining/howling whenever I was out of her line of sight, or her explosive urination or defecation over pretty much everything of value in my house.  When it was time for bed, I made the grave error of locking her up in a playpen I made out of chicken wire and a closet, which, despite being in full view of my bed, sent her into fits of further howling/explosive urination and defecation, ultimately resulting in her biting through the chicken wire (I repeat---biting through the chicken wire) and, still covered in her own urine and feces, jumping into bed with me to cuddle.

For the next two days, I was effectively a prisoner in my own house.  I literally couldn’t leave her alone for more than 60 seconds without coming back and finding something destroyed or befouled.  Since I had to go and teach during the day (I’m here to work, after all), I had no choice but to foist her on my neighbors, which I wasn’t terribly enthused about since (a) Tanzanians are not the nicest people to dogs and (b) I wouldn’t wish that little hellion on anyone.  I eventually learned that crate-training is the preferred method of dealing with this problem, since dogs tend not to soil the places they sleep and, if you park them somewhere with lots of stuff going on, you can contain them without their going berserk.  I was more than happy to build a crate for my puppy, but, as it turns out, basic carpentry can be a major pain in the ass in Tanzania: from the overpriced tools to the fact that I would have to wait a week for lumber (which made absolutely no sense, given that there’s a lumber yard ten minutes from my house… and even they wouldn’t sell me any goddamn wood when I asked), I determined that the crate system would have to be a long-term project.

That’s not to say my puppy and I didn’t have fun.  The first night was unpleasant, for sure, but once she got a feel for the house (and as long as I was around), there were some definite signs of improvement.  She got “sit” and “stay” within the first two days, for example.  Moreover, while there were still plenty of accidents around the house, she began to understand that outside was the preferred place to relieve herself.  Walks were a blast, and she definitely seemed to have fun running around and chasing chickens (which I definitely encouraged… very anti-Tanzanian of me).  Most importantly, there’s nothing more endearing than entering my living room and sitting down on my couch to do work/eat dinner/whatever, and having her wake up from her makeshift doggie bed (some bucket lids, a burlap sack, and lots of duct tape), run over to the sofa, clamber up and into my lap, curl up into a little ball, and fall back asleep while I did whatever I was doing.  Adorable.

After a few days, however, I noticed that she was sleeping a lot more than normal.  She slept a lot when she was healthy, too, but she was sleeping pretty much all day, only taking breaks to eliminate in my bedroom (or outside, if I could catch her in time).  She developed this bizarre wheezing/grunting sound whenever she exhaled, and her heart rate rose sharply.  She stopped eating and became extremely gaunt… my offerings of eggs and even my prized beef jerky went ignored.  I eventually took to force-feeding her food and medicine to ensure that she got any nutrition at all, but nothing really seemed to help.  Within 48 hours of the onset of the wheezing, she was completely bed-ridden, only bothering to lift her head and squint at me whenever I entered and exited the room.

Then, last Thursday at around 10:30pm, the inevitable happened.  I was eating dinner and watching an episode of Entourage.  Without warning, she got up from her doggie bed and stumbled over to the couch.  This got me excited, as she hadn’t moved all day, so naturally I helped her up (she was too weak to climb up on her own).  She crawled into my lap as usual, and looked up at me one last time.  Then she exhaled.

Now, I’ve seen death before.  I’ve killed thousands of insects, and I have borne witness to more than one goldfish going belly-up.  I’ve eaten lobsters and crabs, knowing full-well that only moments earlier they were ruthlessly boiled alive.  Here in Tanzania, I’ve seen both chickens and cows get slaughtered, and I’ve heard the eerily human-like screams of pigs moments before they meet their maker.  This, however, was different.  It was, for lack of a better word, grotesque.  Her eyes grew wide.  Her legs buckled.  Her mouth opened and closed, bearing her teeth, and her tongue lolled to the side, leaving flecks of spittle on my shirtsleeve.  Her tiny body convulsed wildly, as if possessed.  Her tail stiffened sharply and then went limp.  Her stomach heaved, making an unpleasant gurgling sound, and all of her saliva, bile, and other gastrointestinal fluids spilled out of her mouth and onto my left pant leg. At the same time, her bowels loosened, emptying their contents on my right pant leg.  Eventually, after about 60 seconds, she gave one last shudder, her eyes glassed, and she went still.  She was gone.

I buried her the next morning, in a small graveyard near my house.  Bora, a Korean volunteer at Songea Boys’, was nice enough to join me.  There was little pomp and ceremony; we both had to get to classes.  Before we left, just for the hell of it, I fashioned a little cross out of twigs to mark the grave.  I figured it was the least I could do.

But still, even though it’s been a week since the incident, I find her death somewhat disturbing, and very sad.  This is the first time in my life that something human-like (or, at least as human-like as a dog can get) has died in my arms, and it wasn’t a clean death like you see in the movies… this was an unpleasant, protracted---and, well, kind of horrifying---death.  I’m by no means about to run over and sign up with PETA (hell, I ate dog at least once every couple of weeks when I lived in China, and I stand by my earlier conclusion that it’s quite delicious), but this was an animal that I cared for (albeit briefly), and that she was just a puppy makes it that much worse.  In truth, I can’t help but feel guilty: I should have given her another week to recover before taking her home, and I should have picked up on the warning signs earlier.  But I figure there’s not much use dwelling on the subject... she’s gone and there’s nothing I can do about it.  The only thing I can do is learn from this and take better care next time.  Regardless of what happens, though, she'll always be my little girl.

So yeah, I guess that about sums up my first pet experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer.  To be honest, my story isn’t unique by any means: I know for a fact that many of my classmates have had similar experiences in country.  Granted, I wish mine had turned out better, but I guess that’s just the way it goes sometimes.  In the end, this is life: Tanzania giveth, and Tanzania taketh away.  It’s up to us to make the best of it in the meantime.