Man’s Best Friend or the World’s Number-One Pest?
Stray dogs are a common element of travel just about everywhere in the world—and they are generally just a harmless nuisance. Hikers and cyclists are frequently swarmed by village mutts in developing countries, often on the outskirts of town where the animals are allowed to live—mangy mean rejects of society that scrape by on trash and seem bent on hassling anyone carrying a passport. But usually, the animals are easily sent scattering, tails between their legs, if a person only turns to face them. An even better shooing technique—and standard practice worldwide—is to reach over and pick up a stone. Before you’ve even suggested you might throw it—and I don’t suggest you do unless you need to—the dogs will be slinking away with their heads down, as cowardly as they are predictable. It works every time.
Well, almost—because occasionally stray dogs bite. Even more occasionally, a pack of them, encouraged and emboldened by their own numbers, may ascend into full-fledged attack mode as their lupine instincts show through the grime, fleas and bald patches. It has been reported that one in 20 dogs (PDF) will bite a person in its lifetime, and with perhaps 600 million strays skirmishing for food on the fringe of the human world, attacks on people are common—and for travelers to many places, dogs are a danger to be considered along with various other logistics of tourism. Though sterilization and controversial culling programs are underway in some countries, the dog problem may only be growing worse. Rabies outbreaks occur regularly, and the World Health Organization estimates that the disease kills 55,000 people per year. Dogs are the vector in 99 percent of these cases.
Asia and Africa are ground zero for dog-person maulings, but Eastern Europe—in spite of strident efforts to control the animals’ populations—also has serious problems with homeless, nameless mutts. Consider the headline,”Killer stray dogs put Bulgaria on edge,” which sounds like something out of a pulp fiction comic book. But that was a real headline in April, just weeks after a pack of more than two dozen dogs mauled an 87-year-old retired professor in the capital of Sofia, home to an estimated 10,000 stray dogs. The man, his face and limbs shredded, died after ten days in intensive care. Bulgaria, indeed, is swarming with strays, and a progressive government-funded sterilization program seems to be unable to curb the animals’ population. Most of the country’s street dogs seem gentle enough, sleeping away the days in the streets and plazas, many sporting the yellow ear tag signifying that they’ve been sterilized. But with dangerous regularity, the dogs turn mean. There was another death in 2007, when British tourist Ann Gordon was killed by a group of dogs in the village of Nedyalsko. And in 2009 a 6-year-old girl was reportedly “dismembered” by a pack of street dogs. In 2010, a pack of strays found its way into the Sofia zoo and killed 15 resident animals. Now, after the death of the elderly man in Sofia, the nation’s media are buzzing with dog talk. I even met a cyclist once in Greece who had just come from Bulgaria. I was on my way there—and he advised I carry a spear.