Scout and The Second Goal

Meet Scout. (Pronounced “Suh-COW” by my villagers)

Scout is my puppy. She’s my first big girl responsibility. She’s my friend, my protector, and a surprising source of cultural exchange and conversation starters. She’s five months old this January, but I got her when she was only four weeks old from a fellow PCV whose dog had pups. It’s been pretty awesome raising a dog, really frustrating, really scary, and exhausting. But of course, I love her and I’m glad I have her. Having a dog around has made such a difference in my life here. It’s nice having a companion and feeling safe at night when I go to bed. She has kept me busy and taught me a lot. I often mentioned to my family back home that I feel like just having Scout has done more in the way of cultural exchange than any of my conversations, meetings, or behavior have. My brother encouraged me to write about it. I was happy to—because what dog owner doesn’t love talking about their dog? But also, I’ve been boring y’all with overly detailed and Debbie Downer accounts of my actual work here. It’s time to switch it up.

rice stuck to the roof of the mouth is always entertaining

Raising a puppy is a huge responsibility, duh. But saying that and living it are two different things. When she was a baby she’d wake up and cry every time every time a donkey brayed. Now she chases donkeys for fun. When I got her when she was so young that I had to find milk for her every day until she could eat solids. Now I feed her rice, mixed with either some peanut butter, scrambled egg, or powdered milk. She loves boiled sweet potatoes too, which is convenient since people in my village give them to me in abundance. I also spoil her with a little meat I buy in market each Thursday. She’s really energetic (especially when she wakes up to play at 5 AM) and her coat is shiny and she’s healthy, as far as I can tell. 

When she was seven or eight weeks, I took her into Sikasso and got her shots taken care of. She’s vaccinated against rabies and several other things, the names of which I can’t remember at the moment. The shot cost me 12,000 CFA, which is roughly $24. Cheapest vet visit ever, I’ll wager. In village she’s constantly playing with other dogs and puppies, chasing goats and sheep and chickens and guinea fowl and donkeys and cows, so there’s no telling what sorts of crazy diseases she’s exposed to. I do my best to keep her safe, but she’s a village dog and enjoys a degree of freedom that precludes me from protecting her at all times.

Training my little Scoutosaurus Rex has been an adventure, to say the least. I have some experience from training my family’s dog back in Tennessee. Daisy learned pretty quickly and is smart- she and Scout have that in common- but there are all sorts of obstacles here in village that were non issues in suburban Nashville. Take the herds of livestock, for example. Or the lack of Little Cesars doggie treats. Or the fact that people in my village don’t actually like dogs. That was an even bigger hurdle than I imagined it’d be. Since so many dogs here don’t have a particular owner who cares for them the way we’re used to, dogs here are often scared or aggressive when it comes to their space and their food. Parents teach their children to hit dogs who try to eat their food or even come near them.  I don’t blame them—dogs here are scary sometimes, and often sick. But I also realized as I trained Scout and introduced her to my village that I wasn’t going to let her be treated like every other dog. It became important to me to teach children and adults alike that dogs need not be whacked for merely approaching someone, or sniffing at the food on the ground, for example. (Suggesting that we remove the temptation by eating on a raised surface just earned me stares and another notch on The Toubab Is Crazy belt). 

Scout comes with me everywhere I go, and everywhere I go gives me opportunities for training. I try my best to explain my rationale for making her do, or refrain from, a certain behavior. I’ve talked about why I make Scout sit and watch me eat before she can eat, or why I flip her on her back until she is submissive if she’s getting too aggressive. I explained that you have to be judicious about popping a dog on the nose- catching them in the act and punishing them is much more effective than just hitting the dog when you’re mad at something they don’t understand they’ve done. I housetrained Scout in about six weeks, which totally flabbergasted my family. “You let her IN YOUR HOUSE!?” asked my host dad. “Doesn’t she poop there?” and when I confidently say “not anymore,” it’s pretty cool. They think it’s cool, too, and little by little I think my close acquaintances in village are judging me less and are taking interest in my “weird” dog behavior.

i can has friends?

Of course, I’ve made some mistakes and Scout is in no way the model puppy (just this morning she nearly got her face kicked in by a momma donkey as she tried to “play with” [AKA chase] her baby donkey), but we’re improving. Training a dog, as I’ve come to find out, is more like training the human. You have to be consistent, praising all the time and disciplining prudently, anticipating their next move and their mood for the most effective learning. My friend Ethan has helped me immeasurably, explaining, for example, that if you whack your dog for chewing on your flip flop, they’ll be confused. The dog thinks you gave it to her, because everything that’s hers always starts out as yours (if you’ve ever wanted a God complex or an ego boost, get a dog). If you want to teach your pup not to chew on your shoe or pull garbage out of the basket or chase your cows, you have to catch them in the act of going for whatever it is they want. Accompanying it with a command, such as “Leave it!” has worked really well for us (and for all parties involved when Scout begrudgingly left alone a chicken carcass she discovered on our walk yesterday). Score.

Training my villagers has not been as easy. They are still afraid of dogs, especially the little kids. And, since most of my friends here are under the age of six, I have had a lot of time to condition the younger generation. I have a few rules at my house that the kids know well. If they help me fetch water, they get a piece of candy. If they hit another kid, they get kicked out of my compound, and if they hit Scout and she didn’t deserve it, then I get to hit them. Don’t worry, I don’t haul off and wail on these kids-- they learned pretty fast (and so did Scout) that gentle play makes everyone happy.

just taking my millet stalk for a walk, nbd

Dealing with adults in my village has been somewhat more of a gray area. Even though I’ve been in village for about ten months and am well known, I still hesitate to unilaterally decree that they can’t hit my dog. Culture here dictates that all possessions are communal- your chairs, your food, your kids, and especially your dogs- so everyone gets a say in their behavior and discipline. For example, do I get upset at the man who hits Scout so hard that she rolls across the ground? All she did was approach the man because she was being a friendly puppy. Malian dogs generally don’t approach people, probably because they’re hit more than they receive affection. Knowing that, I can understand how this man may have interpreted her approach as an aggressive move. What I saw and what he saw were two different things. I know and have taught my dog to be playful and friendly. Moreover I have learned through my own culture of being surrounded by well-trained and human-friendly dogs to read dog body language. My dad taught my brother, sister and me at a very young age to approach a strange dog slowly, get on its level, extend your hand for it to sniff and let it decide whether it wants to be your friend. We unconsciously know that a wagging tail means a happy dog and certain barks and yips are more playful than menacing, that looking at a dogs ears can tell you whether they’re afraid, excited, or aggressive. Therefore, my villagers don’t necessarily see the same things I see when I watch dogs and humans interact. In this case, I did yell at the man. It was more my anger in the heat of the moment, a momma protecting her baby, than a lesson, I’ll be the first to admit. The man was even a guest of my host father, definitely not someone I should be talking back to, especially as a woman. But I kind of blew past that faux pas when I half yelled half screamed that she didn’t do anything and you can’t hit her unless she did something wrong, like eat your food or bite you, and she won’t learn and you could have really hurt her! Not one of my finer moments, to be sure. But that sure took the man by surprise. Whether he learned that not all dogs mean you harm when they approach you or just that the white girl really is crazy, I’ll never know. For some reason he was disinclined to talk too much to me after that episode. Imagine that.

Scout returned with a horn. She didn't say where she found it.

There’s also another layer of cultural complexity to having Scout in village. The whole point of me being here is to learn the language and culture and play by their rules (wearing pants is one of my few avant garde showings of non conformity, whoop de doo) so that I can maximize my effectiveness as an agent of change. I get that. That’s what I signed up for. But my culture dictates very different mores that often clash with those of my host community. This doesn’t just apply to owning a dog in Peace Corps—it’s a bigger issue that nearly all development workers face: where does culture end and human (or in this case, animal) rights begin? Like I said, it’s a gray area. So do I sit back and watch when Scout gets whacked for drinking water from the pump because some woman deems it inappropriate? Do I let Scout learn that not every person wants to be approached and let those people hit her away? Do I let Oumar, my homologue, take her to the woods to hunt hares but chastise her for chasing chickens in village? It’s hard to say. This is where I fail as a puppy owner and trainer, because I’m not consistent. When I leave village, for example, Oumar takes care of her and she becomes just another village dog without me there to guide her and protect her. When I’m gone, she has to play by their rules, and I have to be okay with that. But for the times when I’m around, I’m still figuring out what’s the best course of action for me, for Scout, for the second goal of Peace Corps: representing American culture to host country nationals on behalf of Americans.

For now, Scout learns a little bit, day by day. So do I. I always have a list of dog-related questions to Google when I get back to the internet, and I’m always looking for advice and training tips to make both of our lives a little easier and a little more orderly. One day, I hope to take Scout back to America with me. I think she’ll like it there. She might miss chasing chickens and taking it upon herself to herd my neighbor’s sheep, but she’ll find other things to keep her occupied, I’m sure. Besides, now she’s a part of my life as much as I’m a part of hers, for better or for worse, for chickens or for sheep.