School Dogs

School Dogs

Anyone who’s been to Thailand knows there’s a highly visible dog population. Stray dogs roam streets and public areas. Many dogs that belong to someone run around freely too, so it’s hard at first for outsiders to tell the strays from the pets. Dogs bark ferociously at joggers and bike riders, and occasionally bite them. They lie down or sit in the middle of the road. Drivers honk at them and sometimes slow down. Usually the dogs get out of the way in time.

At the rural school where I teach, a half-dozen or more dogs are present on any given day. I think of them as School Dogs because they behave as if they belong here – they don’t bark at students, teachers, or visitors, but trot around the school grounds in that ostensibly purposeful way of dogs. They hang around the students, waiting for them to drop some of what they’re eating – usually not a long wait. I haven’t seen dogs overtly snatch food from a student’s hands, but they are Johnny-on-the-spot for spills or scraps that are emptied into bins after lunch. There are frequent short skirmishes over them. 

Some of the dogs participate in our school’s routines beyond foraging for food.  Every morning, when the students line up for the flagpole ritual, dogs are part of the gathering. When there are events in the assembly hall, they join those too.  It’s usually the same three dogs: a black-and-tan one, a tan one, and a black one. They choose a spot and lie down for a nap.  Sometimes the students pat them, but the dogs don’t reciprocate by wagging their tails or licking the children’s hands.  It’s as if they have their own reasons for being there.

One morning a dog suddenly growled and nipped a boy.  Some teachers checked on the child and he seemed unhurt.  The dog trotted away.  Several times the black dog has come up to me during flagpole and stared in what I take to be a baleful manner.  When this happens, I move a few steps to the right, whereupon the dog sits down, scratches his fleas, and settles into a comfortable position. Apparently, I should learn not to stand on his spot.

All but one of the dogs that are regularly present on the school grounds are un-neutered males. It’s obvious that the female nursed puppies not long ago, probably fathered by one of the regulars. Some days, they chase her away. Other times they ignore her. At least once a day, a snarling, yapping fight erupts over food, or because the regulars are trying to chase away an intruder – or possibly just because one annoyed the others.  I’ve seen a little fourth-grade girl go after the combatants with a stick to break up a fight, and the dogs ran. Probably other schools also have their resident dogs, but I only know about ours.

As an American, I don’t welcome the School Dogs – I wouldn’t want my child to have to contend with possibly unfriendly dogs in addition to other school pressures. Thais seem unconcerned about the dogs. However, while walking home from school one day, I was passed by a pickup truck with an enclosed truck bed packed (pun intended) with dogs. I guessed it might be the local dog-catcher rounding up strays, and voiced this thought in conversation with an Australian ex-pat who has lived in Thailand for some years.  Oh yes, he said, they take them to Cambodia and sell them for food.  – Brrr, unsavory thought – though if true, such a scheme might have its practical side, I suppose . . . .  Maybe the School Dogs are escaping a Cambodian stew-pot by integrating into the school culture?