My British name is Stow. I am sixteen human years old and I was born a pariah dog in Uganda; call me feral if you are contemptuous. I only became a pet when I arrived in Britain fifteen years ago. I have three or four weeks to live.
Some Ugandan dogs are basenji, some are African village dogs (don’t ask); I am a Namaaso – we have beautiful eyes and when our tails are in the air we are a sight to behold, apparently. I am the first Namaaso to see the British Isles, and the story of how I ended up here, what I’ve seen, would blow the fur off your coat. Lately, because the days to my passing on are long and the nights are slow, memories have been coming. I thought I may as well write them down. Besides, that name Stow is full of lies – I should tell my side of the story. Bear with me if I don’t remember everything in the right order.
The thing you need to know is that flying is like the dizziness you feel before you faint. I can’t imagine why humans inflict it on themselves except for the possibility that they hate themselves as much as we real animals hate them. The hissing and rumbling and groaning in the pitch darkness of the hold. The tugging sensation just before a shooting speed as the plane launches itself, delirious. Then the weightlessness as luggage, below and above and everywhere, groans and we tilt back, rising. The way the smell of earth thins as gravity loses us. I must have passed out because next we were stable, but the earth was still lost. Though we were outside gravity, now and again the plane dropped and my body dropped slower and my organs slowest. Have you ever felt light-headed in your stomach? It was so cold in the sky I wondered what happened to the sun. Did you know oceans smell large and heady? These sensations went on and on until I sensed three cats and two dogs in the hold. I howled. They ignored me, but I was reassured by their lack of fear. Then Orora’s scent came and I raised my head. The sweet, sweet scent of her concern when she responded. A cat snapped, Shut up, you’re on a plane, you’re not going to die. Another asked Orora, Is your friend a Musenji? The humiliation. Cats – scoundrels who eat cockroaches and rats – were talking down to me!
I don’t know her breed, Orora replied, but I was beyond shock by then. Then I heard her whisper, I think she’s a stray, and my humiliation was complete.
When I asked Orora whether she smelt the sea, the pets said all they could smell was my evacuation.
One moment I was ferreting around roadsides, nosing, roasting under the keen Ugandan sun, the heat off the ground stewing my brisket, the next I was on a plane and a pain so sharp was perforating my inner ears because gravity was back and earth reclaiming us. I died.
The night before the ordeal up in the air, I went to the lufula as usual, the one on Old Port Bell Road. Normally, I set off before midnight, when traffic trickles. When you’ve had so many roadkills in your family, you respect the five seconds it takes to cross a road in Kampala.
Work in the lufula started at midnight. Evilest hour if you are a meat-maker. By the time I arrived there, the butchering had started. I feasted on goat and cow entrails that were small enough to run through the gutters. It was two o’clock when I stopped eating and set off for home. A few paws and I realised I’d eaten too much – the problem of being a pariah: your stomach loses its brakes from constant hunger. I decided to lie down while the tightness in my stomach loosened. But then I thought, Kaweewo, why not stay the night? Find a space, sleep away from marked turfs and spend tomorrow exploring the territories in these parts. Tomorrow night you’ll start eating as soon as the butchering starts and then set off for home. I walked to an open space that no one had laid claim to and lay down.
I woke with the sunrise and set off nosing the roadsides, ferreting out scurries to chase and sniffing out stupid pets on leashes or kennelled. I also needed to work off a lingering fullness from the previous night’s feed. But by mid-morning I was bored. I decided to go home and yawn the day away in my familiar. I had a few bones marinating in the earth around the airstrip in case I did not feel like trotting back to the lufula in the night.
I reached Wampewo Avenue by noon and trudged up Kololo Hill towards my home at the airstrip. I branched off at Lower Kololo Terrace Road to take a break from the gradient and walk in the shade of the trees because the sun was just showing off that day. It was when I turned into Dundas Road that I caught a whiff of her. Naturally, I tracked her. I only trotted because there was no threat in her scent. However, she was a stranger and she felt too close to our turf. Then I saw her. I pranced, my manner half-playful, half-threatening because she had to be dumb beyond idiocy to be trespassing our streets unaccompanied. Closer up, she looked like a fat pup. By the time she realised, I was upon her. She yelped and backed into the hedge, shouting, You big wolf.
I laughed. I could not maintain my menace: not with that compliment.
It’s not funny, you big bully.
Thank you very much, I said. But what are you?
What do you mean, what am I?
You’re not from our parts and you seem grown, but you’re so little rats would challenge you.
I am grown! Four years old already, thank you very much.
Full four years? And this is all you are? I am not yet a year old.
I puffed myself up but she didn’t seem impressed. You have too much fur, I observed. Is that how you puff yourself up, or are you conservation territory for fleas and ticks?
Her fur stood on end and she shuddered and scratched. Stop saying that.
Never mind fleas and ticks; the heat under that coat will kill you first.
I was nosing the air up and down the road in case other pariahs came and saw me fraternising with not just a pet but a dog so small a musu rat would chase it. To be safe, I broke out into a prance, jumping at her and back, at her and back, in half-threats half-laughter.
Please stop that.
Got to do it. Pets could be watching behind these hedges. And you know how you pets gossip. I can’t risk being outcasted for stooping so low. I pranced back and forth, back and forth. Even I can’t believe I’m talking to you right now. Normally, I have pride and haughtiness, but I must admit, you’re a curiosity. I mean, I would be terribly embarrassed if I were four and so little.
For a moment she seemed to have run out of breath to speak. She contemplated me, tilted her head this way, that way, as if to make me out. But just then I smelt cousin Njovu coming and barked: Run, run, run! I need to chase and show you wrath because Njovu is coming.
She was hesitating, asking, Who is Njovu? when I unleashed my scariest growl and she scurried back through the hedge into her human’s field. I gave her a moment and then went after her. Luckily, it took me time to crawl through the narrow hole she had made in the hedge. When I reached the field on the other side, I dragged her further away from the road into the hedge at the back of the house. I lay down and told her to climb on top of me to disguise my scent. We lay quiet. Njovu got to the hedge and raised her nose to gauge how far off I was. Then she called. We kept quiet. She called again. She must have sensed I was okay because she walked away.
Once Njovu was out of scent, I threw the pet off my back and we came out of hiding. The pet said to me, Welcome.
Welcome? What welcome, how dare…but then I realised I was on her turf and turned to leave. Pet, despite her minuscule size, was getting bold. I said, By the way, this whole road is my family’s; so is the golf course. We don’t tolerate trespassers. Either stay within your compound or in your hedge.
She said, Could we be friends? My name is Orora and I’m a Pomeranian, and my human and I visit Uganda often. She was yapping so fast there was no time to be shocked by the outrage after outrage she was uttering. When we’re here, my human leaves me on my own for long periods; sometimes he doesn’t come back for the entire day. I’ve always wanted to make Ugandan friends.
I stared. This dog was so outside reality even the pet community in Uganda would be shocked. Even pets loved it when humans went to sleep and the world belonged to us. But here was a dog who complained about being left alone. I started to walk away – I was beyond words.
She followed me, so I said, Look, whatever your name, truth is: you are a pet, I am a pariah. You enjoy captivity, I would die if anyone tampered with my freedom. You gave up ownership of yourself for food, we feed ourselves. You miss your human; to us, humans are the vermin destroying the earth. Tell me, what will I gain from being friends with you? I knew pets were dumb, but I’d never come across this version of dumbness.
This territory, she offered, including the hedge, the garden around the house and even inside the house, could be yours if you became my friend.
Tempting, I said, but I kept walking. Look, I’ve given you my time and I’ve held back on terrorising you; that’s too much already. This tiny territory, enclosed territory, mind you, is not worth my dignity, my reputation and my place in my family. I was by the hedge now.
Don’t you want to see my house?
You mean your prison?
No, my human’s house.
I stopped. At the time, I was fascinated by pet dogs’ obsession with ‘the house’.
In Uganda, dogs were not allowed indoors. Apparently, if a dog started snouting inside the house, the humans shouted Out, out, get out, but they allowed cats in. To tell the truth, I’d never seen the inside of a house before then. Curiosity won out and I turned back.
And just like that, the course of my life changed. All these years, I’ve looked back on that moment – I could have stayed in the lufula, I shouldn’t have branched off at Lower Kololo Terrace Road, I should have chased Orora off the road, but all that doesn’t matter; it was curiosity that brought me here.
The house was exactly what I had imagined, enclosed concrete. To make matters worse, we didn’t make it out of the second room because Orora had asked me to taste her pebbles. I said fine. After all, we were inside a house and there were no strays or pets to see me. The pebbles were crunchy and tasty, but my pride was still high.
They’re soggy like insects, I spluttered. You know the roasted grasshoppers humans eat? Your food is like that.
You’re not all that big, you know, the pet said.
I menaced towards her. What did you say, scurry? What did you say?
She walked backwards but ended up on the wall. Standing on her hinds, her back against the wall, she said, I mean, there are dogs bigger than you in Manchester, where I come from. As big as a lion.
I contemplated her strangeness and laughed, Yeah, right! I bet some canines are elephants where you come from.
You don’t have to make fun of me. I’m just saying that size doesn’t matter to us because neither territory nor hunting matters.
Oh my tail, I sighed. Because you’re pets, small head, get it? You Are Pets.
I walked to a huge trunk in the corner, which was a riot of meat essences. The smells were tight as if compressed and dry. They escaped in intense spurts. Thinking, Here is some food I recognise, I was beginning to isolate the smells one by one, when Orora shrieked, My human is back. I looked up; he was at the front door-opening. I nudged the lid of the trunk open, slipped in and the lid closed. I heard Orora jump on top of the trunk and sit down.
But her human wasn’t alone; he came with two others. For some time, they moved about the house; their steps were heavy, like trudging, going out of the house, but quick and light coming back. Orora remained quiet on top of the trunk. Then all three humans’ footsteps came and stood around the trunk. Orora was lifted off. I heard her wriggle and yelp. I prepared to spring out and run as soon as they opened the trunk.
Instead, the lid was fastened then the trunk was lifted. I became weightless. One human remarked, It’s a bit heavy this time, but the others just grunted. By now I could hear Orora below me jumping, yapping, Don’t worry, I’m coming along. Stay quiet. I’ll see you soon. You’ll be fine. Her human shouted, Stop that racket, Orora! She’s normally placid, he said to the others, but Orora didn’t stop. I won’t bring you again, her human threatened: then she was quiet. For me, all sorts of terrors had set in. The trunk was wrestled into a vehicle, doors banged, the ignition started and movements began, taking me along. I’ll not lie, I soiled myself. Little did I know then that I was leaving my familiar for good.
All this time I’ve lived in Britain, I’ve not seen roadkill. Squirrels, yes, but not one dog or cat. In Uganda, roadkill for us was ‘died of natural causes’, like malaria to humans. Too many cars for dogs to grow old. Orora had dementia in her last days. It was hard watching her work out food from water, getting lost in the backyard, the trembles and the shakes. The heartbreak when she did not recognise me. That’s when I started to resent longevity. To see a proud dog who used to hold their dung and urine until evening walks have accidents all over the carpet! Yet she was lucid enough to be horrified at herself. That is the darkest kennel in which to be held. It makes you long for Ugandan roads.
It’s a month since my human, the second one, decided to put me down, but she’s procrastinating. The moment she made the decision she gave off a stench of self-loathing and guilt. She wept to herself, stroking me, apologising until I licked her: I’m ready, stop being selfish. They’re dead to our senses. I try to keep away from her pain for me but she won’t let me alone. Her grief is killing my relief. It’s the same scent she and her sister emitted just before they put Orora down. We were happy they had come to their senses, but their misery was unbearable. Unfortunately, they didn’t take me along to the vet for Orora’s passing. I would have liked to feel her go. Then perhaps the human stench of bereavement would have been bearable. The previous night we said goodbye, me and Orora. We squeezed onto my couch. She kept telling me to stop missing her because my scent was keeping her awake, that I should wait till she was gone. She hoped then that our humans would put me down soon afterwards. That was two years ago. Selfish, that’s what it is.
The day Orora came to visit at the vet’s clinic! I felt her the minute she leapt out of the car. Orora was a breed, no fault of her own, but she had a heart bigger than my mother’s, the bravery of a wolf, the determination of a dingo, the persistence of a jackal and the cunning of a true fox. No truer canine. When she felt me alive, she bounded into the clinic, upsetting humans and their pets, jumped all over me, yapping as if someone had taken her pups and returned them. You have no idea what a familiar scent of a dog does to you when you come back to life in an animal clinic with pets odd and weird staring at you, in a strange country where you’ve been subjected to bizarre things like shampoo baths. We licked each other until our mouths went dry. I tried to get up but wooziness brought me down.
Orora yapped, They didn’t put you down, they didn’t put you down.
I said, But they did; look, I’m right down on the floor.
She said, You’re in England. I said, England is outside reality; look at the creatures you call dogs. Why is everyone so meek?
Shhh, she laughed, they’ll hear you!
After that day, we were inseparable. Even during walks, when pets laughed Look what Orora dragged in, she stood by me. And I confess it wasn’t easy, because I didn’t know how to hide my contempt for pets.
I don’t know what happened at Manchester airport when we landed. I was comatose. Later, Orora told me that our human had special arrangements with friends in Customs. Whenever his trunks from Africa were deplaned, they were identified by the friends and diverted to a warehouse without going through the proper channels. In fact, Orora told me, she had never been through Customs because they quarantine pets returning from abroad.
When the human discovered me in the trunk, he almost died of shock. However, Orora fussed so much her human drove me straight to the vet. For me, I was yesterday’s dead. I was resurrected in a clinic by a vet caressing my hocks. Two other vets came around and smiled and made noises as if I were a pup again. Resurrecting to the vicious smells in the clinic, I thought humans are lucky they’re smell-dead. There were artificial concoctions grating my nostrils. Metallic flavours stinging my rhinarium. Then the smells of pain, of fear and of the animals passed on. I was still working out how I felt about being resurrected when I started shaking so violently my vision went. When I woke up again, I was in a cot, like a human pup, only on the floor.
Our human carried me from the vet’s clinic and laid me on the back seat. Orora jumped in with me. She licked me. It’s fine, car rides are fine, just relax, you’ll get used to it and start to enjoy them. She couldn’t stop bouncing on the seat, yelping, My world isn’t torture, just different, there were things she couldn’t wait to show me, she couldn’t wait for me to meet other pets. Me, I was busy sensing out the pariahs in Manchester, plotting how soon I would escape and find a pariah family. I needed to locate where, what and who was who so I could map myself on the territory, but I was getting nothing. The air felt so dry my nose was parched. At first, I thought it was the medicines the vets had injected into me. I feared they had killed my senses. Finally, I confessed: Orora, I think I’ve lost my sensing, I don’t feel this place.
She laughed so hard she fell off her seat. You’ve not lost your perception. Compared to Kampala, which – with all due respect – is an assault on everything sensory, Manchester is tame.
So how do you find your way home in case you run too far in the night?
Why would I run too far in the night?
When you’ve been out exploring because humans are sleeping or you run into hostiles who chase you far from your familiar.
Orora looked at me funny then laughed. It won’t happen. She must have seen the worry on my face, for she added, Maybe the car’s moving too fast for you to register things? You’ll soon get used to the sights and sounds around our area, don’t worry.
We arrived at the house. Car door unlocked, Orora bounded out. I stepped out unsteadily. Orora was already impatient at the entrance door. Our human opened and Orora bounded up the stairs. Me, I lingered below, looking up. Orora, up on the landing, said, Come on. I claimed wooziness but I was lying. I wasn’t woozy. I was entering pet-hood. Our human lifted me and we went up two flights. Once again, Orora was impatient at the door.
But once inside, my pariah instincts kicked in and I nosed every inch of the house. It was carpet, carpet, coats hung. Only one human scent. Door, carpet, carpet, chairs, table, wall, sofa, gadgets, wall, carpet, carpet, linoleum, bathroom – humans drop dung in a bowl indoors! Strong sleep scents in the bedroom. My nose led me to the last room. Another trunk, empty but distant smells of snake, rhino horn, lion, cheetah, elephant lingered. Before I could say I would love to sleep in this room, Orora pulled me out by the ears: Never, ever go sniffing in that room again.
Apparently, one time our human saw her sniffing and gave off the foulest fear. Then he sniffed everywhere comically. Then he sprayed the house with that nauseating stuff. You won’t believe what humans call air-refresher, she said. Most revolting.
I returned to the living room and Orora showed me my couch. I laughed because I couldn’t believe her. I abhorred becoming a pet, but I looked forward to sleeping on that couch. Then I went to the kitchen, which I’d been putting off all this time. I walked nonchalantly as if I weren’t fighting my nose, which wanted to raid the bin there and then. I already knew that the bin, hidden in the corner and a paradise of meats, was forbidden. Pets in Uganda used to say If you want to see a human go dingo on you, tip the bin over. I stopped. For the first time in my life, I won the battle against my nose.
Afterwards, our human sat down on his sofa with a can of beer. He burst the top, took a swig and then snapped his fingers at me. I stood up, took reluctant paws towards him.
‘Sit.’
Orora sat. I flicked my tongue: I’ll sit when I’m ready. But Orora whispered, Sit on your hinds, please. I sat.
‘Right,’ the human said, pointing at me, ‘you need a name.’
My tail swept the carpet. In Uganda, pets have such original names, like Police, Simba, Askari. I thought, Maybe this human was more creative. I could see him thinking. A name arrived in his head and his eyes lit up. He snapped his fingers and pointed.
‘Stow, for Stowaway.’
I looked at Orora: Really? She said, Aww, I like Stow. Others don’t have to know what it means. I just walked away, curled up on my couch and put my head down.
One day I lost it.
Dogs in Britain had never heard of a Namaaso. The blank faces when I explained what a pariah is. They understood one thing only: stray. I laboured the fact that there was no pet blood in my family but the dogs thought I was just ignorant. As I explained myself, this pug laughed, Stow, you’re so anonymous you don’t even have a breed!
See, this was the pug who bragged about his pedigree. I asked him, And what has being a thoroughbred done for you? That lazy nose? I turned to the basset hound who had joined in the laughing and asked him, Were you a seal in your former life? Even that couple of spooky ghost dogs – they call themselves Irish wolfhounds – had been sniggering. I said, And you, why don’t you find a broom, fly in the moonlight and find yourselves a witch human? The bull terrier started going all goody-goody on me: Stow, you can’t say things like that, we’re all beautiful.
I said, Not you, sweetheart. You should sue the humans for what they did to your nature.
She said, I’ve never been subjected to such prejudice in my entire life.
I said, Somehow I don’t believe that. Unless cats in Britain have lost their tongues.
A Persian shouted, Leave felines out of it.
Poor Orora. She apologised, saying that I didn’t mean what I said, that I didn’t understand the nature of breeds, that it was those differences that made all dogs unique and beautiful and wonderful. She didn’t talk to me for days. Maybe I was a bit of a dingo then.
The day I arrived, we stayed indoors all day, all night.
I had never known a night so dead. No insects, no lizards, a few birds and squirrels. I thought the silence would kill me. I was restless. Night was calling.
The following day I asked, Orora, when do we skip outside to explore?
She said, In this country, we stay indoors. It can get very cold outside.
I could not believe it: the house was a cage. Only you were not let out at night. I climbed up onto the sofa below the window and gazed outside. It was not cold when we arrived. Orora sensed my turmoil and said, It was a good day yesterday, but you can’t just go outside without a human. You can’t run around unsupervised in this country. You need to be put on a lead.
The L-word. Orora saw my fur standing on end and added, Only during walks.
I desperately needed to run around the village and sniff out the canine world – who is the alpha, who is his favourite, who is in season, what kind of males has she pulled, who has become roadkill, who did not return last night, who was attacked, who has been outcasted?
On our first walk, I couldn’t believe this world. Dogs as fat as meat-makers. Even cats. I’d thought cat and lean were synonymous. Arrogant pigeons. No fear at all. They wouldn’t even fly out of your way. You growled, they orhooed right back. Squirrels so contemptuous they laughed if you threatened. When I dropped dung, our human picked it up. Embarrassment showered under my fur. Was I not supposed to drop a dump?
But there was no anger in our human. I thought, This is messed up in more ways than a hyena. Then I saw Orora being picked up after and I relaxed a bit. In Uganda, cats called us foulers because we don’t dig a hole to do our business and bury it. It’s the one thing that makes us insecure. Now I imagined the contemptuous things British cats said behind our backs and the following day I tried to bury, but Orora said, Don’t bother, you only make it harder for our human. I saw other humans picking up after their dogs and left it. I had travelled to so far outside reality my nose would not find my way back even if I tried.
As for food, what can I say? At first, I was given those pebbles in a bowl. Then a bowl of water. When I tasted them in Uganda, they were good as a snack, but I’m sorry, pebbles and water simply do not constitute a meal. For pet food, I could tolerate mashed sweet potatoes in peanut butter sauce mixed with mukene fish or posho soaked in the juices of a lamb joint, preferably salted and raw. But pebbles are a joke. Dog biscuits are fake food. Luckily, the bin in the house was always bulging. Our first human loved chicken drumsticks and thighs. Often, they went out of date and he threw them away. Sausage, salami, bacon, gammon, burgers, hot dogs, cheese oh heavenly cheese, venison, elk, turkey and milk. I felt like a pariah again foraging in the bin. At first Orora was disgusted as I crunched chicken bones – Stop it, Stow! You’ll be sick. I’d point at my stomach: I have a crusher in there. By the time she died, sausage and salami were Orora’s favourites.
When the first human found out I ate out of the bin, he started sharing his food. I must confess, steak, rare, salted, dripping with blood, is the ultimate. I needed to drink a lot of water after a gammon or a pork shank. Hooked me on salt. The best times are at Christmas open markets when farmers bring meats straight from slaughter on their farms onto the fire. All forms of human cooking, BBQ, charcoal muchomo, grilled, baked, breaded and fried, cured; it’s a madness of flavours. The human, the first one, would buy a lot of meat and we would eat together. Even Orora started to look forward to it. Even when we were taken to the dog sanctuary, the first human told them: ‘Stow, the big one, eats meat cooked with salt. Orora, the Pomeranian, eats dog food.’
I’d never seen so many different natures of dogs in one place as I did in Manchester. I asked Orora, Are you all native to Britain? She said, We’re native to the world. I looked at her because now she could say whatever she wanted to me. However, humans call us breeds. Then she told me how humans create breeds by selection. I was revolted. But she said, Oh, it’s not like Dolly the sheep. I’d never heard of Dolly the sheep.
The first time I saw a Chihuahua, I thought it was a battery-powered toy. Eyes too big for the face, ears of a large dog, took tens of steps to keep up, squeaked like a two-month-old pup. I thought, This can’t be right. I whispered to Orora, Did humans do that to her? She bit my ear and I kept quiet. But because British humans love travelling with their pets, I warned the Chihuahua, Don’t ever let your human take you to Uganda: a kite could swoop down and carry you off for dinner.
The Chihuahua burst into tears, claimed it was traumatised.
The day humans took our first human away, we sensed nothing at all until it was too late. He didn’t travel to Uganda any more. But empty trunks kept coming and going. However, on this night, I don’t know what possessed him. A trunk with animal bits arrived. I suspect that the smell of hides and skins threw my now blunt nose off balance because I didn’t smell anything until it was too late.
We were asleep when I felt the agitation of strange foxhounds. Two of them downstairs, too close to our block. Then strange humans, non-residents. I sat up and listened. Their anticipation was mixed with worry and uncertainty as if they were going on a hunt. I nudged Orora. She said, It must be the neighbours downstairs; they do drugs, and went back to sleep. But I hadn’t lost my pariah instincts entirely. I told her, They’re coming for us, and went to the human’s door. I scratched and whimpered until he woke up. When he opened the door, I ran up and down the house. Orora was irritated. The human turned on the lights and the agitation outside surged. I raised my voice, but he shushed me and ordered me back to the couch. I slid under his worktable, tucked my tail in and skulked. He understood. He turned off the light and listened. Then he peered behind the curtain. It was like a trigger; humans outside crept up the stairs. Instead of out of the house the human ran to his bedroom.
The house was blitzed, humans shrieking orders, blinding torches, boots stomping like soldiers at the airstrip on Uganda Independence Day. The savages forced our human onto the floor and handcuffed him. Orora tried to disappear into me. The contemptuous foxhounds nosed the house like pariahs taking over a new territory. They laughed as they told us the human was a wildlife smuggler.
Lick him goodbye, you’ll never see him again.
Yep, prepare for the impound.
As the humans dragged our human away, he told them that there were two dogs in the house; that if we were separated neither one would eat.
The trunk was carried out.
Humans were everywhere turning everything upside down, knocking on walls and listening. The house was under their guard for the rest of the night.
Later in the morning when the impound humans came for us, I saw Orora terrified. She was leaving her home forever. I had no such attachments, as long as Orora and I were together. At the sanctuary we were put in the same room. We huddled together day and night.
Orora became a star to prospective humans. She performed. I could not perform adorability if I tried. Dogs said I was grumpy and morose; I was ungrateful because they would give anything for a human like the one we had. I was holding Orora back; I should just be put down. I said, Bring it on; better than being a pet. Orora went, Don’t be like that, Stow. He pretends not to miss him, but he warned our human – didn’t you, Stow? I flicked my tongue, Me? Miss a human, ppu!
But then humans became interested in our refusal to be separated. One day, two men came and took pictures and watched us through their cameras for a week. After that, we were overwhelmed by attention. Even my grouchiness seemed to charm the humans. Eventually, we were matched to a couple of elderly sisters. We’ve been together nine human years now. And when Orora died, they never bought another dog. But then one of the sisters died too and it’s just the two of us now. Luckily, I am passing on soon. My human will live another two years maybe and she too will go. Her liver is dying but she has no idea.
I’d not been in season when I arrived in Manchester. And I must confess there were some magnificent breeds; I thought I would be spoilt for choice when my season came. Orora didn’t even know what being in season was. I told her it’s the happiest time in a female’s life. Twice a year you are bathed in this fragrance that sends males so crazy they must fight their way into your presence. Strong males within scenting radius hang around you hoping to be the lucky one. As many as fifteen males around you all day, all night making sure no one touches you. The love and worship showered on you for just a sniff and a lick! You stand up, they all stand up, you trot, they trot, you stop, they stop, you lie down, they sprawl around you.
In preparation for my first season, I drew a list of natures I could mate with. First, no dogs smaller than me. Corgis, terriers, spaniels, not even collies – too shaggy, they remind me of sheep. Don’t mention Chihuahuas. Poodles? No thank you – too vain. Call me a bigot if you want, but flamboyance turns on she-birds, peacock tails and all – not me. Even greyhounds were off the menu – too skinny. No dachshunds either. I think in the beginning of time dachshunds aspired to be crocodiles but ended up half-reptile, half-canine. I couldn’t bear the melancholy of the bloodhound. No Australian cattle dogs either, those dogs are glorified foxes.
Here are the breeds that made the final list:
As you can imagine, I wanted big, I wanted fearless, I wanted speed and strength – males that promised sturdy pups – but I drew the line at the Newfoundland. Those monsters would break your back.
But at the time, I seemed to rub everyone the wrong way. They called me all sorts – sizeist, bigot, breedist. When we went for walks, not one male glanced at my butt let alone sniffed it. I thought, Wait till I’m in season, you’ll come crawling on your bellies. I should’ve known something was wrong. The first day in season I woke up, climbed on the sofa and snouted between the curtains. I looked through the window expecting a crowd of males, restless downstairs. The car park was empty.
I wanted out of the house. If loving wouldn’t come to me, I would go and get me some for myself, but the door was locked. When eventually time for the walk came, I was not just put on the leash, I was muzzled.
Picture this. You’re a debutante, coming out on your first day in season – in a muzzle, on a leash! I couldn’t walk beautiful if I tried.
In the park, there was not a flicker of interest from the males, neither sniffs nor licks, nada. Just snide remarks that the muzzle became me. Then the mongrel whispered to me: Eunuchs!
First I choked, then shivered, then I was filled with contempt. I wouldn’t wish that on a hyena. For the rest of the day, I was frustrated, confused, angry, restless and disgusted. I needed male loving. But when I turned on poor Orora – I attacked her in the night, apparently – we visited the vet again. Never been in season since.
I had never seen dogs with issues – I mean deep-seated issues – like I saw at the dog shelter. In Uganda we had ticks, fleas, kawawa flies that ate flesh off your ears, worms, fungi and, more seriously, you could get rabies. There were also antisocial pariahs, but some of the things I saw at the sanctuary? No.
If you want to find out which breed has fallen out of human favour, go to dog shelters. I love ice cream, but how can a dog be addicted to chocolate? And when sanctuary staff stop giving it to her she suffers withdrawal symptoms? I saw a dog who freaked out every time she smelt cigarettes. Another arrived at the sanctuary shaved naked. One involuntarily evacuated at the sound of human footsteps. But if a human came talking or whistling then she was fine. I saw a dog who fell to the ground scratching in agony, I saw pugs who could not breathe, dogs with cigarette burns all over their coats. Yet all of them believed that the next human would be the one. This canine love for humans in Britain baffled me.
It is happening. I am going to Jirikiti. Even the sun is out. My tail is not what it used to be; I would have danced. My human is in her bedroom getting dressed. They found out about her liver. Unlike other humans, she’s not going to fight it. She’s a tough one, my human. Did I tell you we’re the same age, me and my human? Eighty-four. In Uganda, they call my kind Mbwa ya Namaaso…