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There is a distinction between a street dog, and a dog in the street. A dog in the street may have a home, be a pet, be fed and cared for, and be loved. Whereas a street dog has none of that. This morning I was out walking at sunrise and I passed a poor little dog, dead in the ditch most likely hit last night. His gums had already pulled back from his teeth and the long pink tongue was alive with insects. The accidental garbage arrayed about him made for a pretty poor funeral bier. He was a street dog. 

Cartoon

At the bus stop was a poster inviting us to Community Castration Day. Like a bean supper, it was ten bucks a head; fifteen for dogs over 20 kilos. 

Feature – “The Yellow Cur”

There are two ways to get to our house. Left-around the car wash or right-around the car wash. It’s a half a block either way. Right-around the car wash is the main drag with buses, motorcycles, a festering trash heap crawling with rats, and taxis beeping, as if beeping alone could produce a fare. 

Left-around the car wash takes you through a quieter half block. The homes are not grand but they are nicer. Relatively speaking, and boy everything sure is relative, it’s the scenic route. I am partial to backroads so left-around the car wash quickly became my preferred route. Outbound in the morning there’s better shade. Homeward bound it’s more tranquil. Either way, I can wave at the guys at the car wash. 

One afternoon I must have been running late. All the usual dogs were sleeping under cars or coiled up in such shade as can be found at Latitude 9° N. But when I entered the lane an unfamiliar dog arose. He was yellowish, medium sized, healthy - not a street dog. 

Like most, I go through life assuming that my fellow man and dog would rather make friends than not. I operate accordingly. This hound did not growl or make a face, but as he drew abaft my beam, he lunged. I was unready. He didn’t bite, but his snout made contact with my left calf. I cared not for this. I don’t know if you’ve ever been lunged at by a dog, but it brings everything back to basics: Who has the power? Who is the boss? Or, as Aretha Franklin sang it, “Who’s Zoomin’ Who?”

A few days later it happened again. All the little dogs laughed to see such sport and one even staggered to his feet with all the ardor a tropic sun permits. I knew I had a problem. I also knew that the yellow cur was a bully. He always waited till I was just past him before he made his move. No one likes a bully.

I read it in a book once, and used it to great effect in my Phillipine campaign of the late 1980s, that, when confronted by a hostile street dog one must invoke the International Gesture. The International Gesture amounts to reaching down as if to pick up a stone. Perceiving superior firepower, real or decoy, the experienced street dog immediately slinks off. Works every time. But the International Gesture only works on dogs accustomed to living by their wits. House dogs don’t know the International Gesture.  

So when I passed that way again a few days later my Phillipine trick of reaching for an imaginary stone did not work. The yellow cur snapped and lunged. I grabbed a real stone and flung it in his general direction. He stopped, cocked his head. You could read the new calculus on his face. I can’t do calculus but dogs can. Sensing confrontation, the other dogs rose to their feet. I edged away, down the sidewalk. When the ‘Thrilla in Manila’ did not materialize, the hounds slumped back into the shade like fans of a last place team in late innings, and another batter has just flied out.  

I suppose I could go right-around the car wash for the rest of my brief Costa Rican life. It’s noisier, more garbage, but it’s actually three steps shorter. If steps were coupons, that could really add up. Think of the savings. Nickels, nickels, nickels! For better or worse, my own canine bloodline appears not to have been bred for capitulation. 

Au contraire. In a Limón second (which is probably around 2 and half minutes, GMT), some underemployed quadrant of my brain set to work casting this insignificant local confrontation in the grandest terms available: the 241 year old U.S. policy of Freedom of Navigation. 

True or not (and who cares these days?), I have formed the impression that among the most consistent policies of these United States of America, going back to the ‘Birth of the Nation’ (I don’t mean the movie; I mean the barbecue) has been enforcing the Freedom of Navigation. I suspect that this posture is at play in the current confrontation unfolding in the South China Sea. If I am right about that, you should kneel and pray at your bedside every night that someone with an attention span is paying attention.

But of more immediate import was this bully of a yellow cur who, like the Tripolitan Corsair of yore or the Somalian Pirate of today, wanted to exact tribute out of my left calf. But for the vision and mettle of our forebears, lo, those many years ago, I may not have had the constitution to enforce Freedom of Navigation, left-around the car wash here in Pueblo Nuevo. But I did. And this is how it went down: 

I donned my sombrero. I kissed my wife. I strode into the street with my shot locker full and a copy of the Monroe Doctrine in my breast pocket. (Ok, it wasn’t a breast pocket, more of a side boob. And, yes, the Monroe Doctrine isn’t actually a piece of paper – I’m telling a story, dammit!). The sun was blazing down.

Upon making eye contact with the Yellow Cur, I casually tossed a stone into the air and let it drop into my palm. He watched me. I watched him. He watched me some more. So did I. I tossed the stone again. It was but a 19th century courtesy, yet I was cognizant that the well-timed gesture, properly interpreted, held the potential for averting a calamitous war. Knowing full well that he was engaged to the second cousin of that Alsatian strumpet, the niece of that Bavarian whippet, who winters in Venice with that awful nephew of Franz Josef that Uncle Bertie warned us about, I felt it worth a try.

Heedless, the yellow cur snarled, and tried to gain the weather gauge. My guns were pricked and primed. The first shot was the best. I clocked him amidships at the Plimsoll mark with an audible thump. He reeled and yawed. Like the picnicking spectators on blankets viewing the Kearsarge pummel the Alabama while consuming sandwiches with real mayonnaise and the crusts trimmed off, his fair-weather friends laughed to see such sport. 

The second shot glanced off his stern, which was now amply exposed to enfilading fire. The third skipped off the ground and found some portion of his nether regions. Freedom of Navigation! Freedom of Nether Regions! Free Willy!

As the smoke cleared I read from a prepared speech as the other dogs looked on with proletarian indifference: “We have won the war, but now we must win the peace….

Next day, my beautiful wife, the daughter of a “diplomat", came home with a bag of dog treats and some helpful suggestions on how to manage confrontation. No one likes a bully. No one likes a collaborator neither. 

Postscript: On the advice of the “State Department,” I waited a few days before proffering the dog treats. Never saw the hound again.