Dilemmas: Canine family planning

Spending time abroad you become acutely aware of cultural differences between your home country and the ones you visit. Language, money, food, social customs, clothing, cars--the substantial and trivial alike begin to stand out. Of late, I have found myself hyper-aware of a phenomenon that is strikingly foreign: Dogs with balls.

Testicles, that is. The fact that they are swinging around everywhere, for all to see, is shocking to a guy who grew up in Bob Barker's world and never really thought to ask why his dog had one part but not the other(s). I know little to nothing about canine anatomy, but field research has taught me that the dog's testicles tend to be disproportionately large and prominently featured. Call me weird, but, for someone with nothing to do but explore and observe, its hard to miss a dachsund with avocados dangling between his hind legs.

Generally cause for a gasp and a juvenile snicker, there is a sad side to the free-ball regime. "Raining cats and dogs" is not an idiomatic expression in Central and South America. Many balls means many dogs that belong to nobody and everybody. Plentiful as Hollywood zombies, they scatter fleas, disease, and garbage about the streets. Also detrimental to public health is the noise pollution generated by frequent pack fights and chases.

I have never seen so many dogs sleeping--all day and all over. They lie down in sun and in shade. On streets, in gutters, inside stores and out, they conserve what is sure to be precious little energy by lying for hours at a time. Some are lucky enough to find "mattresses" of cardboard to keep off cold, wet cement. In this mode, they do not get up for anybody or anything. The females seem most exhausted, having been suckled ragged by litter after litter of pups.

When they are awake, they are incredibly attentive, frisking any passersby for possible nourishment. They are generally too tired to be mean, but I have been growled at by tiny lap dogs and attribute their misguided anger to hunger. In Puerto Varas, in Southern Chile, a too-thin Husky followed me around for 30 minutes one morning while I checked out hostels. He trotted patiently at my side, occasionally sniffing and hoping that I might have a morsel tucked away somewhere in my bags. Later that day I found two dogs knocking over a trash can and searching it voraciously. The larger of the two ultimately found a promising bag in the mess and carried it away in his teeth.

Obviously these countries--I have noticed said phenomenon in parts of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Argentina, Ecuador, and Chile, as well as in Asia and some European cities--are taking public policy one step at a time and may have larger issues to address. Nevertheless, balls, when it comes to urban-canine best practices, seem to be a bad thing. While it might be tempting to romanticize the notion of letting an animal stay "whole," the observed negative consequences of letting nature take its course in this case far outweigh any potential gains.