Dog Mafia
A dog mafia operates outside my home. We’ve come to an agreement: I pay them in scraps of bread each day and they don’t bite me. It works out great...but it wasn’t always this simple.
I’m located in the far eastern edge of Moldova, a stones throw from the Dniester River in Varnița, the last Moldovan-controlled village before Transnistria. As the sun sets on this tiny village each night, a flood of darkness envelops it in blackness, overwhelming the sparsely scattered street lamps that fight to keep light alive past eventide. At night, Varnita is a dark place.
I live the village’s lone apartment building, a crumbling Soviet-fabricated stone massif, penetrated only by rows of cracked windows and broken railings. A produce shop, hair salon, and cell-phone store occupy the side of the building facing the main road forcing the building’s residence to enter their abodes through the back. A wide, eroded, asphalt semblance of a driveway curves from the main road leading to the building’s rear.
My apartment is located on the building’s far northern corner, four stories above the ground. Getting there requires stepping through a ground entryway and ascending four flights of stairs. The ground entrance’s large, cast-iron door is always open and the streaks of flaky paint chips and remnants of a lock testify that the building didn’t always look like an abandoned military post. Beyond that point, the building’s four stories of eroded stairs lead up to my level and are in the same, crumbling state as many of the circling staircases of Wales’ ancient, abandoned castles.
The only lights in the stairwell are at the very bottom and by the third floor the diminishing light gives way to total darkness. Ascending to my apartment every evening is no different than crawling up a dark hole within a cave. Each night as I climb up into my cavern I bid farewell to the refuge of my lit path below and traverse two stories of blackness, hoping no wild creatures will ambush me unawares.
Just four days ago, after dark and returning home, I began my nervous ascent of the stairs. I heard the loud, rough voices of men in the stairwell above me. “Knowing my luck they’ll be right where the light totally peters out”, I pessimistically predicted. Sure enough, as I warily approached the tenebrous fourth story I spied three men standing in the pitch-black stairwell. If I wanted to make it to my apartment I would have to make it past their blockade. I set my internal alert system to “orange” and cautiously approached them ready to spring, dash, fight, or do whatever I might need to should they decide to attack. Three steps from the fourth story my reconnaissance image improved. “Bang, bang, bang” two of the men were pounding on an apartment door directly in front of me. The third man stood at the very top of the stairs looking at me. I felt his eyes follow me like a tom-cat’s as I quietly sneaked by praying not to disturb their lair. “Bang, Bang, Bang - Mikhail open up”. The two men continued to pound the door as their drunken voices echoed behind me.
I only had to make it to the floor’s separate corridor leading to my apartment and I’d be safe. The door at its entrance was firmly shut. I stopped at the door and grasped its fragile handle. The two men at the door stood behind me banging on the door and I felt the third man’s menacing stare peering over my left shoulder. I tugged on the door. The loosely screwed-on handle jittered backwards but the door barely budged. I pulled harder, ripping the top screw out of the handle but managing at least to open the door. I quickly shut the door behind me grateful that I was finally beyond their threatening reach.
Such are the nights in my apartment-fortress in Varnița.
The darkness of the building aside, it didn’t take long for me to grow comfortable with my location. I considered the dark building a worthy sacrifice for living in a fascinating Moldovan village and quickly settled in among the village’s wildlife. Goats and cows wandered the village, their owners in tow, while chickens and geese pecked for scraps of food underneath their masters’ supervision. Dozens of plump, docile cats scavenged for food, warily watching passerby’s, while their mangy, bony, canine counterparts patrolled the streets in packs with the same mission.
The dogs in Varnita, and throughout Moldova for that matter, aren’t nearly as awe-inspiring as their Russian cousins to the north. There, packs of large, tame wolf-dogs roam the streets and camp in the metros, long ago having given up the serenety of the woods for the abundant scraps of the city. A sideglance into the somber eyes of a docile husky begging for food or at a pack of shepherds at the entrance of a metro must evoke sympathy out of even the most fervid of dog haters. These dogs’ calm, wistful presence mixed with their wild majesty and beauty reverently whisper forth stanzas of the Russian soul:
“Once wild, now tamed by the convenience of the gorod*, they spend their hours seeking shelter and food. Mud and blood cover their rain-soaked fur, yet majesty and beauty cry forth beneath, impossible to ignore.”
The Russian dog truly is majestic. The Moldovan one is anything but that. These dogs here are half the size of their Russian relations and, oddly, lack humility despite their rattyness. It suffices to say that in the dog world, Moldova is a country of ankle-biters… really obnoxious ankle-biters.
I began to notice these menacing dogs as I navigated my way around Varnita finding shops, learning which busses to take, and where I could get my hair cut. I had lived in a land of wild dogs in Russia so, despite their bark, I didn’t believe these dogs would ever bite.
One, unassuming afternoon I returned to my apartment with a bag of groceries. As I approached my dom’s** entryway I spied a female, tan, charcoal-muzzled medium sized mut that resembled a Jack-Russell. I stretched out my hand in a gesture of friendliness. Oops. No sooner did I do so and she viciously knashed her teeth at me barked furiously. “Oh no I sure hope that dog doesn’t think I was trying to hurt it. I sure don’t think she’ll be in attack mode every time she sees me”. A chill ran up my spine as I traced over my folly.
Two days later, on a late, dusky afternoon, I turned the corner down my wide back ally leading to my apartment. The high apartment building blocked the setting sun settling a blue-grey shadow upon the 20-foot wide ally. A group of children were playing on the ally’s paint-chipped, Soviet-style playground in the shape of a rocket as two men leaned against a dilapidated pic-nic bench that strained under their weight. As I made it half way to my building my female-dog nemesis dashed up to me, a half-foot from my shins, and furiously barked while I tensely neared my dom’s portal. The men, seeing my apprehension, snickered while the children showed a little more mercy calling out to my tauntress, “Come back here. Don’t bother him”. Their pleas failed to soften my foe as she came nearer and nearer to my imperiled leg. Finally, to my relief, I reached the building door and quickly shut it, closing out the merciless barks. “This isn’t good. This is getting worse and worse”. I pessimistically noted.
And it continued to get worse. Each night as I came home I approached my doorway of safety this dog would find me and ensue her vicious threats. Soon another, larger, flabbily breasted mutt joined in. I noted to my khozaika that these dog bullies were worrying me. “Don’t pay attention to them, ”she answered. If you just ignore them they won’t bother you”. “But I’m trying to do that,” I stammered back. “They won’t leave me alone”.
One night, after an eventful day in Chisinau, I was returning to my apartment in the black of night. As I walked towards my building from the bus stop I remembered my recent bouts with the dogs. “Oh, no, I sure hope those dogs don’t give me any problems”. I approached the entrance of my apartment via the wide, decayed asphalt driveway that curved around to the back alley. Amidst the village’s darkness, a lone, towering street lamp luminated my side approach exposing the overflowing neighborhood trashbins that held sway in the back alley’s northeast corner. Yet even that street lamp’s brave touch only went so far. Once the building’s towering walls blocked the street’s light, pure darkness reigned. This dark border abruptly cut diagonally across the back alley. I could see nothing in the darkness in front of me; to get to my apartment I would need to step into blindness.
I stood at the border between light and darkness for a second sensing whether a dog lay ready on the ambush. I heard and sensed nothing, took a quick, deep breath, and stepped into the blackness, leaving my lighted security behind. With an uneasy feeling in my gut I quickly made my way to my door. “If I can get to that door…” I told myself, “then I’ll be safe.” Finally, I reached the door, stepped into the lighted corridor and breathed a sigh of relief. I was safe.
I casually headed towards the first flight of stairs, only a quick turn around the corner in front of me. As I approached I heard the quiet music of children’s whispers just around the corner. I turned the bend, expecting to politely make my way past my little neighbors, and soon made out three children sitting two feet away from me on the stairs. A blonde, five-year-old girl sat on the first step and two boys sat on the second, one holding something in his arms. Suddenly to my horror I saw what it was – the female mut. I had no time to retreat as she, seeing me, jumped from the boy’s arms, and leaping in the air came down upon my right leg, briefly gripping her sharp teeth on my calf. She jumped down behind me and barked fiercly as I bolted past the children up the stairs. I ran to my apartment and closed my door behind me finally in safety.
I pulled up my trousers to examine the dog bite. My right leg was liberally smeared with blood. “Oh, no, what if that dog has rabies!” I frantically thought as I remembered the warnings of a former Fulbright student who had specifically warned us about rabid canines. I quickly called my NGO director Oxana.
“Yes Matt” she stated, answering the phone.
“Oxana, do dogs out here have rabies because I just got bit by a dog!”
“No, we don’t have those kind of dogs here. You don’t have to worry.”
“What you need to do is go to the market and by a ‘shokker against dogs’”
I washed the blood off my leg and examined it closer, looking at my pants, then back at my leg. The dog’s teeth hadn’t punctured my pants and had only grazed my skin. Still there was a good deal of blood. I made the mistake of showing my khozaika as she came home.
“Look what happened to me” I said, showing off my battle scar.
“Oh, we need to treat it!” She frantically responded.
“Don’t worry I already put some of my American anti-biotic cream on it. It’ll be fine.”
“No we need to put vodka on it or it will get infected”. She opened a casket from her mantle.
She trickled vodka on my leg and dabbed an alcohol soaked pad on the wound.
“Does it sting?” she asked?
“Yeah, but that will go away soon. I’m much more worried about those dogs. They won’t go away soon.”
“You have to do what I told you. Don’t pay attention to them. Don’t be afraid of them. That’s why they bit you – because you ran away from them!”
“I didn’t run away from the dog. I stood right there. She ran at me!”
“If you keep running away from the dogs, they’ll keep biting you”. She continued. It was no use trying to explain to her that I really had never run away.
Andrei, our 35-year-old next door neighbor, stopped by and joined in the conversation.
“What you have to do is to get a little bit of sausage or bread and feed it to the dogs”, Andrei advised. “Once when I would go home every day after work this dog would bark and threaten me. He was this annoying little mut that would bark and bark and bark. Then one day I got some sausage from the store and fed him a bit so he could get to know me. You just need to let the dogs get to know you. And stop running away from the dogs!”.
“The dog bit me! How am I supposed to go up and ‘get to know’ that dog!?” I protested. “I’ll tell you what I want to do. I want to buy a gun!”
The alcohol was stinging quite a bit by now and I returned to my quarters to rewrap the bandage.
“How is feeding that dog going to make a difference?” I asked myself. “I’ll tell you what I need to do. I need to arm myself! I’ve got to get one of those ‘shokker’s that Oxana was talking about. It’s either me or the dog that’s going down.
Each time the dogs were around the house it was evening, so by the next morning I guessed I would be safe leaving. Nevertheless, I was still apprehensive and cautiously left the building that next morning ready to fight for my life, if needed. I was already planning on leaving town that weekend and didn’t return to Varnita until a week later.
Upon my return the first thing I did was search for a ‘shokker’. Oxana’s husband suggested that I just buy some MACE but I couldn’t find either. “Well, I guess I’ll give it a stab to make peace with these dogs” I consented as I bought a kilo of sausage. “We’ll see how bribing works. Just don’t run away from the dogs. Don’t run a way” I told myself.
To my relief the dogs weren’t there when I arrived after my sabbatical, nor were they there the second or third day after I returned. “Man, this is working out pretty well!” I rejoiced.
Three days after I arrived back, I left early on a Saturday morning to visit a school in Transnistria. Running late, I galloped down the stairs. Suddenly vicious barking startled me from below. The tan female mut thrashed her teeth at me” Giving into my fight or flight response I cowardly dashed back up the stairs. “I’m not going to let this stupid dog keep my trapped inside my house all day!” (I was reminded of a time as a seven-year-old when I was so afraid of the Japenese Beetles that swarmed the bushes in my yard that I missed out on what would have been a fun summer day camp because I wouldn’t leave my yard for fear of the beetles.) I broke off a chunk of sausage and exited again. Determined, I encouraged myself, “Alright, I’m not coming back here until tonight!”
I ran down the steps and reached the second floor. The mutt held the first floor and I would have to get past her. This was it; this was the time when I would face the dog. She resumed her furious barking and, in response, I threw a chunk of sausage to the first floor. All of a sudden she ran out of the building! “Hmm, wasn’t expecting that!” I triumphantly exclaimed.
As I exited to the street she maintained a safe distance and alerly, yet silently stood in front of me. I broke off another chunk of sausage and threw it to her. After a few moments she lowered her guard, crawled over to the sausage and began chewing it. I quietly sneaked past, and in no time, made it to the main street. I had busted the dog operation.
When I returned to that apartment I came armed and fed the dog a piece of old bread. Claiming it, she let me pass without a bark. I too made sure to feed the larger, flabby mutt who shared guard duties.
Day after day before leaving I grabbed a piece of old bread or a cracker and offered my payment to the dogs as I left and returned home. As long as I would give them some sort of food they’d let me pass. If I didn’t pay my dues my fate wouldn’t be so favorable.
I’ve been here for two months now and each time I leave my building I make sure to have a piece of old bread with me. It’s a great way for me to use up bread that goes stale as I know there will always be an eager mouth for my meal. Different dogs come and go through the gang’s porous border’s demanding for food from me. But one thing is consistent. I know there will always be two female bosses waiting for my crusts when I come home. It’s a fair deal. I’d much rather cough up some food rather than my right leg.
* gorod ~ city in Russian.
** dom ~ A dom referes to the large, Soviet apartment block buildings.
