What Has Losing My Dog Got to do with Consumerism, Healthcare Workers, and Environmental Degradation?
By: Kehinde Egbanubi
Tags: Environmental Issues, Dogs, Consumerism

Image by Cedric Clth from Pixabay

To read the first installment of this 2-part series, click here.

For a while now, Smart and Smith have been showing signs of old age. If we were to approximate one dog year to seven human years (unverified), they’d be well into old age at 77. While old age has been boding well for Smith, it has not been so kind to Smart who is currently suffering from glaucoma.

Smart’s blindness started about three months ago when my sister called to tell me that her steps weren’t steady and that she walked like she was confused.

Unfortunately, the next few days after my sister’s observation, we did nothing.

In more ways than one, mine is a classic African family. Our initial reaction was to believe that whatever was wrong with Smart would go away “in Jesus’ name” — the go-to remedy for all our problems. Since Smart and Smith hardly fell ill in the eleven years we’ve had them, we felt perfectly justified. It soon became clear that Smart’s eyes needed more than hasty prayers for healing, so we called the vet.

I wish I could say this was the point where things took a turn for the best. It didn’t. Smart’s eyes only got worse.

Her vet, without even taking a close inspection of her eyes because he was scared of Smart and Smith, recommended that we give Smart Omega-3 supplements. Granted, according to this article, Omega-3 does help eye development in puppies, but in the face of Smart’s completely clouded eyes, that felt like a joke.

My sister couldn’t stop muttering in disbelief.

“Omega-3! Omega-3! He gave her Omega-3. What’s that supposed to do?”

***

The rollercoaster of Smart’s blindness and how we intend to treat — or in her case, be free from — it has brought me face-to-face with a lot of inherent problems related to our attitude towards animals in Africa. This includes our attitude towards pet ownership and pet care.

What was it about the West that got them thinking about animal welfare as far back as the 19th century? Freedom?

It would be highly dismissive of me to reduce European influence and colonialization to a cursory event, especially given its impact on the people we are today. Yet, I can’t help but wonder. Are we still so affected by those events that we feel the need to self-preserve at the expense of our environment and other living creatures around us?

I see it in our near obsessive need to consume and worse, in the nonchalance of our healthcare workers.

There’s a lot of layers to the blasé attitude of Nigerian healthcare workers, and I can hardly blame them. In a country where the government is okay with owing workers’ salary for months so that a less demanding side hustle pays more than their profession, their attitude shouldn’t be a surprise. It is worse when they are veterinary doctors.

How many Nigerians own pets?

Of the people who own pets, how many use the services of a veterinarian? Most certainly not my grandmother!

This goes to show that veterinarians are not quite as in demand as human doctors are. As a matter of fact, Nigeria’s dismissiveness is reflected in our chronic lack of vets, with only 8 vets to one million farm animals in Gombe State. Little wonder Smart’s vet was okay with prescribing Omega-3 for his patient without once checking to see if it worked or not.

As Smart’s eyesight deteriorated and my parents insisted that she had served her purpose in our home, I felt bile rise in my throat. I was angry at my parents for being so summary about her role in our lives.

If one of us went blind, I thought, would they give us away because they felt burdened by the responsibility of caring for us?

I was angry because, at the end of the day, Smart was no more to them than a stray dog was. And I hated that they didn’t mind giving her to someone who had no regard for what she’d meant to us all along.

I often thought about Brother Tee* who would eat her, and I hoped Smart’s bone would get stuck in his throat.

Stage 3: anger

Ours is a culture of consumerism where we seek to consume and consume. It’s become so normal that we see no wrong in it. We hardly think of how we can give back to the source we take from. When we do give, it is with a cautiousness that maintains the existing imbalance, i.e., our pockets remain significantly fatter than that of the people we give to. We are constantly consuming without giving much thought to how we must replenish. A classic? The case of crude oil!

We kill animals for meat, fell trees for wood, download free books and courses without asking how we would give back to those places from where we have taken.

This has made me confront my own greed.

It has also made me ask myself if we understand existence beyond consumption.

After we have consumed water, what next?

After we have killed animals for meat, what next?

After we have consumed the free online course or downloaded the free e-book, what next?

What do we have to show for our constant consumption? Better yet, how are we holding ourselves accountable for replacing what we are consuming?

Can we dare to let go of our instinct to keep, hoard, and consume and exchange it for that of abundance, à la Westerners who are constantly seeking new ways to make the world better for others?

Importantly, how are we comfortable killing animals the way we do?

Yesterday, I gasped in horror as I passed by a dog kill center. I saw a man holding up a dog by its neck over an open fire with a two-pronged pitchfork. As he did so, the dog shrieked furiously.

Was he about to burn the dog alive? My heart broke at the thought.

I didn’t — and still don’t — understand how that man was okay with that.

In the same way, I don’t understand how we are okay watching the environment degrade without feeling a sense of urgency to repair it.

On my way to work each day, I am alarmed at how street-side gutters are so filled with dirt. I am even more so when I see the flood the litter causes during the rainy season such that people have to wade in knee-high water as they walk the street.

How are we not troubled by that?

I think about the inhumane way we kill dogs in Nigeria, and I don’t wish that on even the most vicious animal. It’s simply too horrifying, and what for?

The promise of sweet meat!

For people who don’t know how to create life, we sure have some ruthless means of taking it.

I keep thinking about the fear Smart must feel at the point of death, and I think it’s unfair that she should have to go through that. Just being away from the comfort of our house leaves her vulnerable in ways she’s not been since she wandered away from the house as a puppy.

Alone with whoever would be killing and eventually eating her, I imagine that she would be taunted, and with that she’ll lose the remaining zest for life that’s left in her. I imagine her losing interest in the little things she takes pleasure in: hand-fed treats, following every sound and nuzzling my siblings and I, terrorizing the birds and lizard that often pick at her food, digging up the garden… I imagine her whimpering more than she has in the past eleven years, not so much from pain as it is from loneliness.

I imagine that she is that dog, the one that man held over the fire and my heart shatters into a million pieces. I don’t want that for her. She deserves a more dignifying end than that.

The more I turn this over in my mind, the more seriously I consider veganism or at least pescetarianism. Unfortunately, I do not have the will to reject a juicy plate of fried chicken. While I no longer eat meat, turning my back on fried chicken has proven to be one of the biggest tests of my life!

I will say, though, the thought of my pets being eaten has brought me face-to-face with the fear that animals feel at the point of their deaths.

I understand that animals have been given for food, however, I think there is an unspoken expectation to do it with mindfulness; a conscious reverence for the life force within these creatures. It’s one reason I admire the animal cruelty laws in place in the West.

For instance, the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act that was signed into law in the U.S. in 2019 classifies cruel acts like burning, crushing, suffocating, impaling or sexually exploiting animals as a federal crime. While there is something akin to animal cruelty laws in Nigeria, with such acts being punishable with fine and/or imprisonment, it remains to be seen if anyone regards them.

Stage 4: Resignation

After a while, my anger gave way to compassion, which in turn gave way to resignation.

What Brother Tee* did not know and would never know is the joy of sharing a meatless plate of rice with a dog, which far outweighs the momentary pleasures of a plate of dog meat eaten alone. The companionship of a dog is simply irreplaceable.

***

This turn of events made me confront the impending death of Smart and Smith, something I always dismissed with hasty pronouncements of “God forbid”.

But after eleven good years, the handwriting is on the wall, and no amount of God forbids will alter the inevitable tendencies of their biology.

Smart alternates between moments of great appetite and none, while Smith’s been having more injuries that don’t heal as quickly as they once did.

Writing this, I discovered that contrary to what I had believed about Smart and Smith being a Golden Retriever mix, they are either Africanis — in which case their average life expectancy is between 10 to 12 years — or they are Basenjis with an average lifespan of 12 to 16 years. In the end, they are both closer to their deaths now than they were when they first came into our lives.

Intrusive as that thought is, it is an undeniable fact. Sooner or later — which is only a few years left if they survive this year — their time here will end.

It’s not the easiest thought to make peace with, but I have had to.

That led to the final stage of my grief: acceptance.

I spent the weekend, after the second ominous call with my sister, at our family home. I wanted to build one more memory with Smart and Smith, if it was going to be the last time I saw them. I am unable to reverse their fate, but at least I could tell them one last time how much they meant and will always mean to me.