A dog called Police

The family that bought the house from Mr. and Mrs. Jeenah moved in almost secretly. There was no furniture delivery truck, no van loaded with household goods. The first signs that the house was occupied by my new neighbours were curtains drawn closed at the windows and a howling, mangy dog running up and down the concrete yard from early morning until nightfall.  I tried ringing the bell at the gate and calling out from the pavement but nobody ever responded, though once or twice I would see the curtain pulled slightly to one side by a woman wearing the brightly coloured patterned fabric that West African women wear.

At night men would arrive in three shiny, new cars and two or three women, one carrying a child on her hip, would appear briefly from inside the house to welcome them. Their heads were covered and their bodies shrouded in the ankle length garments that Muslim women wear.

The metal, roll up gate on the side of the house would be lifted, the cars would drive in, and the gate would close behind them. 

Within weeks of moving in, truckloads of building supplies were delivered and construction work began in the back yard of the house. Then a huge satellite dish was installed on the roof. From my glimpses into life beyond the metal gate, I surmised that quite a number of people were living on the property, but the house was always cloaked in silence, like a ghost town.

At night when the men returned, the dog was locked out to roam the streets. At sunrise he would wait loyally at the gate to begin another miserable day of running up and down on the other side of the fence.  

I noticed the dog had an infection around his eyes, which were inflamed and bleeding. Increasingly distressed, I finally confronted one of the men. His name was Moosa.  He agreed to take the dog to the vet. When there was no sign of this, I reported my neighbours to the SPCA.

These days the SPCA’s strategy is to rehabilitate the owners of pets rather than remove the animals. In this case, my neighbours were instructed to take the animal to the vet for inoculation and treatment. When I complained that the dog was still running up and down a small stretch of concrete, still howling, and still being locked out at night, the man I spoke to from the SPCA said he could not intervene because the owner of the dog had complied.

Again I confronted my neighbour. I asked him if he would like to find another home for the dog, whose name, I established, was ‘Police’.  He said, “You can take the dog but first you must give me another dog. And I want a big dog, not small dogs like yours…”

I befriended the dog. I bought a box of biscuits for large dogs and fed him through the fence. After a while, he allowed me to stroke his mangy head, then he began to wag his tail when I came out my front door, and to lick my hand when I approached him.  A couple of times in the days and weeks of my relationship with Police, I saw the curtain stir at the window and realised I was being watched. Once, one of the men came out of the metal gate when I was feeding the dog, and demanded to know what I was doing.

I spoke to the local vet about the situation. “It’s tricky”, he said. 

Early one morning, I saw Police waiting outside the gate on the pavement as usual, then I heard the men drive off.

Later in the day I noticed that the dog was not there.  He was not there the next day either.  Finally on the third day, I confronted Moosa.  “Where’s Police?” I asked.  “He ran away,” he responded with a  sullen expression, turning away. We have not spoken since.

There is a new dog, also an alsation, a puppy, kept behind the metal gate. I catch a glimpse when the men leave or arrive.