All Things Dogged

There are just as many, if not more, stray dogs as when I was here last. Bucharest has two million stray dogs, and I’ve heard from a few sources now that dogs from the city are captured and released in this region. Regardless of where they are coming from, the dogs are clearly demonstrating the principle of multiplication! I’ve seen big dogs, little dogs, dirty dogs, sick dogs, maimed dogs, mating dogs, puppy dogs – and all in the city. In Oman, Muscat was plagued by feral cats, waiting like bloodhounds for scraps, climbing onto restaurant tables to pull off anything uneaten, lying out like flea-ridden carpets on the pavement, ambling closer with that starved eye. Here, the dogs are similarly pitiful and would eat pumpkin seeds if given the opportunity, but at least the Omani felines didn’t run in packs at night.

Mosquitoes also fall into this category of gross multiplication and proliferation. I accumulated some 40 bites just on my arms over the course of a week. One of my Armenian apartment-mates, Anahit, and I have taken to decorating the place with mosquito skeletons, killing the little miscreants whenever they poise themselves on the walls or ceiling. Anahit said the mosquitoes here are more ugly than the ones in Armenia, and while this clearly makes them more deserving of death, I’ve never been able to differentiate between the ugly and beautiful ones. Perhaps this is a rather unorthodox case of beauty being in the eye of the beholder!