VICTORY, SENIOR BINGO AND MERCURY, all pure Nigerian bred, were great dogs in their diverse ways. I hope I remember them well in my shout out to them in the first part of this series last week on the occasion of the August 22, 2022 World Dog Day. That column was meant to encourage everyone to respect dogs more, and to stop killing them for meat. My fourth and last dog, KING, was no less a wonderful dog than the other three. From it, I, also, learned many wonderful lessons.
King
This was the replacement for Mercury which, as I reported in the first part of this series, was given a respectable funeral with prayers when it died. I couldn’t have thought of any other way to part ways with this dog. We had grown so used to each other that I couldn’t consider it not a part of my family. In any case, my spiritual convictions were that we would meet again somewhere in this great Universe on our ways home, Mercury to the animistic realms, from where the souls of animals come, and I, too, prayerfully and through hard work on my being, to the the spiritual realms, paradise, the orign and final abode of perfected human spirits who, a long, long time ago, left its home as an unconscious spirit seed germ for the earth where, alone, it could attain consciousness before returning home. This sober reflection reminds me of a whole world of things which am still doing but which I ought to have stopped doing along time ago, and, also, of those things which by now ought to have become my first nature but have still not.
King was, also, a “no nonsense” local dog like the others. At Emina, I was disturbed a lot by lizards which sometimes found their ways into the house. So, I brought in a cat. The lizards disappeared or went up to the roof. I felt obliged to unite the dog and the cat. As a lord in this wonderful creation, uniting all creatures in love is a task which a substantial part of humanity has abandoned or distanced itself from. Whenever food was served, the cat came along to eat and King would begin angrily to bark. Both would stand at opposite ends of the bowl, adrenalin, the flight or fight hormone, running high, hairs on their bodies standing on end. Often, King pulled away, the cat ate and left and King had its turn. Later, they ate together. I learned a lesson from them. Neither was glutonous. Each took only whatever it needed for the time being, whereas humans, everyday, ferociously tried to accummulate what they wouldn’t need in all eternity, never filling up, and quitting and leaving something for the next person.
I am elated whenever I hear stories of this human weakness being overcome in Europe or North America. I sell nutritional food medicines out of passion and for a living. These days, Europe and America are going through a sort of rationing because the COVID 19 pandemic has dealt a severe blow to manufacturing capacities in these regions. My friends over there tell me that if there are only 12 bottles of an item on the shelf, you cannot pick more than one bottle. The sales people would remind you that some have to be left for other customers who would come after you. This is a great way of life which King and the cat, though animals, consciously or subconsciously respected and constantly reminded me of: to not be ravenous or gluttonous. While I salute Europeans and North Americans for their consideration for fellow human beings, I cannot reconcile this behaviour with the ravenousness with which they destroyed Africa and other regions of the earth, including, right now, Ukraine and Russia, setting up one nation after another.
It was after I moved house again on my retirement from THE COMET Newspaper that King’s years with me were more eventful. I was building a house. I noticed an anthill on the ground. I shook my head in partial worry because I should have seen it before I took possesion of the land. Many house owners and property developers do not pay serious attention to natural forms they find on the lands before they begin to develop it. I count myself lucky that the radiations which were coming from underground water crossings may not be injurious to human life on the top soil blanket over them. If the radiations are injurious, there are plants from the psychic garden one may cultivate on the land to divert, block or absorb the radiations.
An anthill has a story line behind it, for ants build their ant hills, the colonies in which they live, over the tracks of underground water crossings and courses, which send different types of radiations, some harmful, some beneficial, to the top soil. How many people building houses checked the land for such features as this before they began to build? Even now that this area is fully built, I doubt if there is any of the house owners who know why an army of giant Hawks land on their rooftops everyday as though for a meeting or whatever. On the road behind my land, there once stood a tree which was the meeting point of these Hawks night and day. Road construction workers brought down the tree to make way for the road. The Hawks were not disappointed. They merely made the roof tops of houses nearby their new meeting point. What has continually brought them here for about the last 15 years since the tree was gone? Do they come for earth radiations? Notice chickens in the late afternoons when the sun is setting. With their legs, they make a crater in the soil and lie in it. Cats and dogs like to lie where the earth radiation is strongest. So, it does not surprise me that all manner of snail species thrive in my compound and in neighbouring locations. The frogs, toad and the crickets are long gone. Snakes are no longer daily sight. Except for the snails and the Hawks, a concrete jungle has taken over a beautiful ecosystem dotted here and there by insignia which invite our attention to streams and possibly rivers underground, crossing each other or one another spewing all kinds of radiations to the top soil.
One of the ways the existence of underground water movements may also be confirmed is the movement of these ants in large numbers in a single file. These ants were to torment King and probably shorten its life. When they came upon it one night, and it was furiously barking, I assumed it was asking for more food or just wanted to go out of the premises on its nocturnal prowls. When I came out to silence it, I found the African Black Ant and the Red Ants every where and on Kings’ body. My family was out of town, and I lived alone in a neighbourhood where houses were just going up. Everyone wondered why I lived alone in that seemingly “defenceless” area. I knew the beings were around. The house itself stood over underground water crossings as evidenced by long columns of the African Black Ant and fire ants which like to move from an anthill on the undeveloped opposite property towards the site of an anthill on my own property which had to give way to the foundation. I sprayed petrol on the ants to no avail. I also burnt heaps of papers and rags without success. They fled in disarray only to regroup later in exactly the same route. They dispersed only to return. Then, someone told me to pour wood ash on them. There is nothing on earth which does not have an antidote. Snakes flee from the smell of tobacco leaves, kerosene and bitter kola. The ant columns disappeared and never came back. I did not have the patience to watch out for where they were always heading. I was concerned that they did not kill King. King was a rebellious dog with a large appetite. When my purse could not satisfy its appetite, I introduced bones to its diet. It would fish out all the bones and eat them first. Sometimes, it abandoned the rest of the meal and would be happy to have more bones. One day, I dared King and it showed that it was up to the task, but the task taught it a bitter lesson. It ate all the bones in a meal and abandoned the rest of the meal. Its bowel movements blocked in the process. It cried and cried when the poop got stuck in from constipation. Only when I gave it a whole bottle of olive oil did its anal muscles relax. My entrance gate had a clearance from the ground through which it always sneaked out. I would arrange three levels of block work from pillar to pillar. But it would make a way out for itself. It got infected with so many ticks which sucked its blood and later killed it. There was no vet doctor around, and I had no car to run it to where I could find one. Everyday, I helped it to pick the ticks. But the more I did, the more it became infected. I chained it down in the cage with a double chain. But it would break the chains and escape. Once I heared the chains making noise in the street at night, I would know it had escaped. If I shouted its name, it would halt in its tracks and return home.
One day, someone misadvised me that he could remove the ticks by bathing King with a mild solution of expired diesel and kerosine. That was a disaster. King lost almost all the hairs on its body. It felt pains in different parts of the skin which appeared damaged. We were both lucky it was gagged. The gags were removed when the pains subsided. It really did not mind me for as long as I emptied a bottle of olive oil in its meal bowl. I mixed the olive oil with powder or liquid vitamin B5 supplement and vitamin A I learnt from the book THE WONDERFUL WORLD WITHIN, by Dr. William Rogers, the biochemist who discovered that pantothenic acid or vitamin B5 and that this vitamin makes animals grow beautiful coats and that vitamin A, like vitamin c and zinc, is good for skin health and wound healing. In a twinkle, King licked it up as though the oil were water. Then I knew it was ready for a meal. Its last three days were agonising for both of us. King grew leaner and leaner, and rejected food. I knew it was going. Isn’t that the way gluttonous persons also go? The thick population grew more and more. Ticks do nothing but suck blood and nutrients from their host. Then, one day, King went to hide itself where I could not easily find it. My vision was ebbing. So I could not easily tell where it was. When I finally discovered it, King was gone. This time around, I had to perform a funeral ceremony alone. I looked for a place on the grounds which would not be affected by future development, and dug a deep pit into which I put the body, said farewell prayers and gave assurances that I would not forget the time we spent together. If our relationship had been mutually-inwardly strengthening, our paths should again meet some day. I knew this message will not be lost on King for, contrary to some human opinions, animals pick our thoughts and understand our language. This time around, I alone buried its remains amid prayers.
A different level of respect for the dog by Keysley Okundaye, a retired Central Bank of Nigeria employee who lives in Abuja
Sir, this is most intriguing and yet highly educating. You may say ah, a crossbearer should not be intrigued by the account of love between man and animals. That is correct. But the burial rite is markedly a different level of respect for the dog. Yes, I am aware of the possibility of love of man for the whole of mankind. This, I had once experienced. It repeated a few times later. But love of dog or animals, is something rather far removed from me. That, perhaps, is a brand or variant of love. The subject of love is something that should interest all adults. The problem in our country Nigeria today can be traced to one word: hatred. The solution obviously is love. Descriptions of human problems in economic, social or political angles are due to the fact that man is too complicated to comprehend simplicity. If a person has love for an animal to the extent that she or he would bury the animal with prayer, then such a one cannot kill a human being. I had kept two dogs. This was many years ago. I don’t know now if I can find time to respond as you requested. You have drawn society’s attention to a most URGENT AND CRITICAL ISSUE at a time when hatred and falsehood are destroying lives and property in all parts of the country. Thanks so much, sir.
Typical Obudu people respect dogs, don’t eat “404”
By Mrs. Evelyn Obiku who lives in Obudu
Such an interesting write up. I will like to shade light on two things:
- You saw dogs in Watt Market Calabar waiting to be bought for both home and restaurants use; there is no section in Watt Market where live dogs are kept to be bought for either home or restaurants use like there are designated places that one can find goat meat, beef, chicken, fish etc. There is none like that in Watt Market. Rather dog meat dealers bring dogs from the northern part of Nigeria and keep them around their joints in cages for people to go there and buy. There is a dog depot on Atimbo Road as you are going to Akpabuyo.
Dog meat is not sold in restaurants and it’s not served in homes as in using dog to prepare afang soup. Dog meat is a delicacy specially served in joints with bold signs “404 is Ready”. It’s normally served with Ukot – wine from raffia palm. People that eat dog meat always announce its arrival. You as a guest is at liberty to eat or not.
- You mentioned one Mr. Atsu from Obudu. I come from Obudu and have a good sense of knowing the village one comes from by their surnames. Atsu is a name from either Bebuabong in Urban 1 or Bedia in Begiakah ward. I come from Betukwel where I grew up. Dog meat is not a delicacy in Obudu at all. Obudu people were farmers and hunters and it is dogs that used to help them in hunting. There are no special joints that you see bold signs 404 is ready in Obudu like you see in Calabar. The Obudu man calls the Igbos Bizii-ubuo…. People that eat dogs. If the Obudu man was or is a dog meat eater he will not call the Igbo man a dog eater, that’s like kettle calling pot black. It’s boys that lacked parental care that used to take people’s dog to the bush and do justice to them and when caught the whole village will look at them as badly-brought up children.
- My grandparents lived in Ndian in Cameroon where my maternal grandfather worked with Pamol and was later transferred to Pamol Calabar. My grandmother’s business was 404 and plantain; the business my grandmother operated in Cameroon and later in Calabar. But after the civil war when my grandparents went back home to Obudu my grandmother stopped that business because it was a “No” in Obudu.
The typical Obudu man sees a dog eater as a glutton. It’s the young people that want to try new things, like when they go to school or work in Calabar that they try to explore things that ordinarily is not condoned in their village. You have a choice to eat or not. Dog meat is not a taboo but those of us that were brought up well will always remember where we come from and desist from eating dog.
Eating dog meat is not a taboo but the average Obudu man whom the dogs daily accompany to the farm, for hunting, keep guard as security at home and sees a dog as a companion.
As an adherent of the Grail Message I know what it is to have a loyal pet.
Obudu people don’t sell dog meat in restaurants and don’t serve dog meat as a delicacy, it is outlaws that express their deviance.