WORKING DOG

I was doing some writing today about Ginger and I was reminded of one of the funniest "cultural difference" lessons I learned in Haiti.

Americans can be weird about our dogs. We buy stuffed animals, soft beds, and canned food for them. We will wrap gifts for them at Christmas time and refer to our dogs as our “fur babies” and as "members of the family". 

It was not that way in Haiti.

Ma Lwi was a sweet Haitian lady who cooked for our family a few nights a week. As she prepared the meals, she would often set aside scraps of fat and skin trimmed from the meat. I knew she took those scraps home to feed to her dog.  

I will never forget the first time I visited her at her home. Her gate was made of metal sheeting and when I knocked to announce my arrival, a little dog in the yard raised a terrible ruckus. 

As Ma Lwi opened the gate to me, I said, “So this is your dog! What’s your dog’s name?”

Ma Lwi gave me a puzzled look and responded simply, “Dog”.

It had no name. It was an "it", not a "he" or a "she". 

The thought of giving a dog a name struck her as strange. As far as she was concerned, that dog was not a member of the family – it was there to work. It was the dog’s duty to alert the family to the presence of intruders and, preferably, to scare those intruders away. 

And for its trouble it was paid in table scraps, not affection.