Cutting to the chase, my experiences today have proven that yesterday’s blog post was a premature leap at experiential wisdom; making the claims I did after my second full day in Athens wasn’t exactly wrong, but my opinions of the whole “doggy dilemma” have significantly changed.
The above photo is by no means well-shot. Nevertheless, I was able to catch one of the three dogs that trekked along with us to Mt. Lycabettus this evening in its typical form. Disrupting traffic is probably the least significant of the dogs’ inappropriate behavior, as I’ve observed a much darker side of this stray dog population and their interactions with humans. A brief list of some of the more shocking moments today:
1.) Our friend Mittens became much less of one after attacking a police man and managing three nips at the back of the man’s calf. Understandably, Mittens was then threatened with a taser and shot with pepper spray from a distance that proved (thank goodness) to be ineffective.
2.) Mittens growled and nipped at a woman whose husband was taking a group picture of us. We had to tightly grip his collar and stroke his forehead to get him to calm down.
3.) The three-canine pack mentioned above attacked countless people who looked at us for an explanation; the common rule of thumb seems to be that proximity implies ownership.
The psychologist and animal-lover within me has been thinking a bit about the implications of this violence. One noticeable element in these combative dog vs. human confrontations is that a great deal of them have targeted Greek men. By no means am I justifying their attacks, however I suggest that there is a kind of experiential wisdom within these dogs that causes them lash out (or befriend, as in the case of our group) as such.
Animals and humans are products of their disposition (genes, nature, whatever you want to call it) and their environment. I believe the dogs have learned through the experiences in their environmental situation to be hostile to Greek men, as it is these men who most often (to what I’ve seen) threatened dogs with physical abuse. Accordingly, the dogs single them out for attacks and the cycle of learning continues; Greek men learn to be wary of any stray dog, and the canines learn to act hostile towards people who look like they have abused them before.
On a lighter note, the wisdom they have gathered through experiences with Americans keeps them coming back for more. As one Greek man pointed out to a member of our group, Americans more often show attention and love to these dogs, and thus Greeks can immediately distinguish tourists as the ones who have a pack of dogs following them.
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