Outside the Petit Marché in Niamey, Niger
Athena, who was five when we found the puppy four years ago, still draws pictures of our family with Tick in them.
When we went to her fourth grade conference, the teacher read us a story Athena wrote about finding Tick, caring for Tick, and losing Tick.
In Niger most people don’t like dogs. One afternoon we went to visit the compound of a Togolese friend who had a puppy. A Nigerien woman who lived in the same enclosure gave the sleeping puppy a hard kick as she passed. Her son added to the puppy’s pain by smacking it with a stick. My daughters, who were playing outside with some of the children in the compound, came running to find me with tears in their eyes.
“They kicked the puppy and really hurt it and it wasn’t doing anything to them!” my 7-year-old cried. “Why would anybody do that?”
Cars actually swerve to hit dogs. Children throw stones at them. Adults chase them away with sticks. Most of the dogs you see on the streets of Niamey, Niger’s capital city, are so thin their ribs show.
I’ve heard a lot of explanations for why Nigeriens don’t like dogs. Some neighbors of ours gave their dogs away when a Muslim priest told them the angel wouldn’t bring the blessings of Ramadan to a home with a dog, because in the Koran an angel is scared away by the bark of a dog.
Niger is a country of abject poverty where people, who often don’t have enough food for themselves, keep domestic animals to work: donkeys pull loaded carts, camels are like mini trucks, traveling long distances laden with cargo, chickens are kept for eggs and meat, goats and sheep are raised to sell or eat. Herds of milk cows share the roads with the cars, foraging in the garbage dumps.
But what can a dog do in a desert climate where there are no predators to scare away from crops, no waterfowl to retrieve from rivers, and no sleighs to mush through the snow?
Dogs aren’t seen as companions in Niger. Instead, a dog is another mouth to feed.
They are “useful” only to protect a compound by barking and snarling at strangers.
Having a dog is a luxury that most people in Niger can’t afford.
Incidentally, having a dog is a luxury that some people in America who are struggling financially are also realizing they can’t afford. Since the economic downturn in this country many dog owners have found they can’t keep their dogs, and I’ve read about how humane societies have become overrun with unwanted animals.
I haven’t answered Tracy’s request to tell the story of the orphaned puppy that we nursed back to health. I’ll write more about it in my next post. I’m hoping Mothering’s site glitch will be fixed this week, so that I can also post some photos. Come back soon to read more!
Have you lived in a developing country or anywhere overseas? What was the attitude towards dogs?
Tags: Living in Niger, Niamey, Niger, the way people treat dogs in Niger, why are some people cruel to dogs?
© 2009 Mothering Magazine
I lived in Nigeria and i’d be careful with the generalization. The actions you witnessed were unique to the perpetrators. Cruelty of any kind to any living thing is frowned upon. Without delving too deep into the love of animals in my part of Africa(i’d hate to give credence to your article), I warn that you are jumping on the band wagon of those who see it fit to criticize Africans for every and any thing. Good Luck in publishing articles with more credibility.
Whoa, remember that your experience is limited, and evidently doesn’t overlap where she was. Do you not realize that throughout the Muslim world dogs are reviled as the animals that scared away the angel Gabriel? And in my experience, I saw that even in some Christian/animist areas like Togo, dogs are meat sources, not pets. I don’t know what your experience in Nigeria was, but evidently you weren’t in the Muslim Hausa regions from the delta to the northwest. Dogs not welcome.
I agree just b/c you lived in one country in the vast continent of Africa does not make you an expert on how West Africans treat dogs. It’s like blaming a Texan for the actions of a woman in Toronto. Let’s get a grip here!
Did you ever spend time with actual Africans of any particular culture? Pets are a luxury of the developed world, more common in expat homes and embassy communities than in the homes of the hardworking poor who make up so much of the population in sub-Saharan Africa. I’ve seen the people throwing stones at dogs in more than one country there.
I lived in North Africa for three years and while I didn’t see this degree of mistreatment of dogs, I definitely heard about it, and did see it with cats. Of course there are going to be exceptions, but in general, dogs and cats in Morocco are – as you described – considered another mouth to feed. When so many people can barely support themselves, and the animals they do keep are for strictly utilitarian purposes, it’s hardly surprising that keeping a pet (dog or cat) is seen as luxury reserved for the rich. And that animals who seek food from people who don’t have it to give are driven away. I don’t say this as a criticism at all – it’s understandable. And I don’t think it’s generalizing to describe a personal experience.
That must have been very hard to see, coming from a Western perspective where pets are usually cherished. I’ve seen people mistreat animals in the USA and NZ, but not on a wide scale.
.-= Melanie @ Frugal Kiwi´s last blog ..Groovy 70s Fabric Embroidered Quilt =-.
I’m surprised by the comments that espouse a vague and moralizing image of Africa as if Western upper-middle class liberal values predominated there. Keeping dogs as pets is a European custom that was introduced to Africa as a local practice mainly in South Africa among Boer and English families. If you have lived among the richly diverse cultures of sub-Saharan Africa, and not just as a traveler, you see that far over 90% of the people are just surviving, no luxuries or Western affectations like dogs. Why should they regard exotic carnivores like dogs, which were never native to Africa, as anything other than an invasive species and competition for food? That’s the reality of dogs there.
Some African Muslim friends have expressed to me their disapproval of cruelty to any animals, including dogs, and point to the halal laws against making animals suffer. But I don’t expect other cultures to share my affection for cute puppies.
I’m very, very sad reading this post. To think that cars would purposely swerve to hit a dog? I don’t care if it’s another mouth to feed, it’s a living being and feels pain. So awful.
.-= sheryl´s last blog ..Nothing Routine About Transitions =-.
India – dogs and monkeys are constantly bombarded with stones in both Muslim and Hindu areas. I was really surprised by this.
Egypt – stray cats and dogs seem to fare a little bit better
Tanzania – the Maasai liked their dogs but I didn’t see many in the cities
In Germany, where every dog I met was extremely well-trained, dogs are allowed in restaurants and beer halls and on public transportation. Dogs are allowed into places that children are not with the reasoning that they are better behaved than children. I didn’t see as many dogs when I lived there as I do in the US, though, and many of them were working dogs in addition to their roles as companions.
.-= Mama Em´s last blog ..To Tye- at 1 Year =-.
I’ve never been to Africa. It’s sad that animals are mistreated that way, even if it is a regional problem. I live in Hawaii where there is real cultural diversity. In most cases, dogs are well-treated pets. But in certain cultures, dogs are, as Jasper says, a meat source. A couple of years ago a dog was stolen from where he’d been tied in a public space and killed for food. It may seem horrific to those of us who consider dogs pets, but for the people who consider dogs nothing more than dinner, it’s a long standing cultural norm.
.-= Kris Bordessa´s last blog ..Kahumoku Ohana Hawaiian Music and Lifestyle Workshop =-.
When we lived in Bosnia in 2002, seven years after the Dayton Peace Accords were signed, we hardly ever saw dogs. We assumed at the time it was because Sarajevo is overwhelmingly Muslim. We are spending this year in Sarajevo again, though, and are startled at how many pet dogs we see. (I actually wrote about it on my blog a couple of months ago- http://saturdaymorningkhartoum.blogspot.com/2010/09/post-war-recovery-dogs.html).
I guess people couldn’t feed pet dogs during the war. Cats did fine on their own. I think it’s a measure of the increased stability people must feel that so many are getting dogs.
And so much for my assumptions about the cultural baggage that goes along with being Muslim!