By Yang
Mingling with Strays in Malaysia
A series of personal encounters with stray dogs of Malaysia
Preface
For the record, I am a birder. I am no authority on dogs, let alone stray dogs. My pursuit of bird sightings will lead me to make dog sightings, as I shall explain shortly.
When you get down to it, birding is not much different from fishing. A lot of waiting around for a catch. You want to see something new, or at least nice. Not the fifth crow in the distance disguised as a potentially backlit bird, a real-life Who’s-That-Pokemon. (The answer is always Corvus splendens, the House Crow.) At the same time, you’re keeping your eyes peeled all the time. You don’t get the luxury of sitting and waiting for a tug on your fishing rod.
So you start noticing strays.
As with most things in life, it starts at home. In the idle months that follow my high school graduation, I begin taking notes on the stray dogs of my neighbourhood.
The Neighbourhood Dogs
On the quiet, overgrown roads of my Penang neighbourhood, stray dogs abound. I take the same route on my bike, keeping my eyes on the trees and seeing what comes my way.
Strays live in the dust and overgrown weeds of a barren construction site, where trucks rumble and machines roar. Three segments of large concrete pipes have been abandoned by the roadside, each no larger than a child’s playground tunnel.
It is here I meet the puppies.
Their mother is with them, a black dog with pointed ears. I couldn’t tell you which of the local dogs was their father. Was it Flop-ear, the tan one with a folded ear? Bull, the great piebald hound? Sandy, the friendly golden one that followed my father home for treats? Mother deserves a name besides Mother, because tying femininity to motherhood isn’t what we’re about these days, even for dogs. (Let’s call her Nyx.)
There are three puppies: two black and one tan. They are huddled inside the concrete tunnel, and they look up fearfully as I pass them by. Anyone with brains knows not to get near puppies, lest you risk their mother’s wrath. So I pedal by and turn into the road next to the construction site proper.
Blue and green metal sheets have been set up next to the site, protecting its users from most of the goings-on. Yet one sheet has broken loose and folded over into the road, swaying in the wind, and I have to cycle carefully around it. From the gap in the barrier, a thin, bushy tree threatens to grow into the space that has been provided.
The road itself is a dead end, cordoned off by a tall green barrier. Thick leaves and branches grow over it, casting moving shadows over the gravel. Cars don’t come here, and the looming metal provides some respite from the sun, so it’s become a common place for people to go for a walk. In my case, I’m biking up and down the stretch as I watch the trees and skies overhead. I once spied a speckled female koel in this way. If I’m lucky, I catch the dipping yellow wings of an oriole.
Here comes Rot, a black dog with tan tips that resembles a Rottweiler. Here sits Ash, the old dark hound with grey on its muzzle. They stare when I cycle past, then continue padding surely and steadily up and down the road.
Why they gather here, I do not know. Perhaps they are not even doing anything in particular — perhaps this is just where they must be, for they are strays and they belong nowhere.
Still, I can think of better places to be. The soil has been buried with stone and clouds of dust dissipate on the wind. Only machines rule here, lying still and dead as they wait for their masters to awaken them. No warm hands come to feed these strays. No little old ladies come to throw out rice for them.
I will leave my home in April to study in Selangor, the heart of Malaysia. When I return, the puppies are half-grown, and they bound about with the energy of youth. When I return again, they are fully grown, indistinguishable from Nyx and Bull and the rest of their pack. Somewhere, new puppies are lying in a ditch, and they will grow up knowing nothing more than steel and stone and dust.
In a river north of Penang, it’s a different story.
The River Dogs
Sungai Burung means Bird River in Malay. True to its name, it’s a wonderful place to bird, and it pains me to disclose its location. My efforts are in vain, anyway. While I have not met another birder here, there is no shortage of cyclists and tourists around these parts.
You want a bike — it’s no place to go for a walk. Roads meant for machines have sprung up over the past few years, a new development. I still remember cycling over red clay and gravel-packed paths which lay the foundation for smooth painted tarmac. My father drives us up north on the weekend, because I haven’t learnt to drive yet. He folds our bikes in the trunk of the car and packs dog treats in his pocket, and we’re off.
The first sight on our route is an assortment of lorries, tractors and bulldozers which lay abandoned by the water’s edge. They must have been here for a while — much earlier than the recent construction efforts. Their steel is dull and brown, and climbing leaves have claimed them, growing out through their empty windows and coating them in leafy green. Mud-brown river waters lie still next to these corpses. I keep an eye out, though there usually isn’t much to see. I spy the round bobbing figure of the white-breasted waterhen by the water’s edge. More often than not, it’s the chickens prowling loud and proud in their enclosures by the row of homes next to the river.
We cycle up and over the bridge meant for trucks and cars to use. It’s new — I left in April before I saw it built, and when I returned, it was as though it was always there. We dismount at the top, and I bring out my camera and wait for a catch. The tide is low. Little egrets stand still in the silt. All manner of creatures have come out to traverse these rich lands. Mudskippers, crabs, monitor lizards, you name it. Once, on a very lucky occasion, a trio of otters. Collared kingfishers sweep down, skimming the surface briefly before they reclaim their perching thrones. They’ll have better luck making catches than I do.
We hear a motorboat whirring before it comes around the bend into view. Its wake cleaves through the grey-green waters, a frothy trail that sends shockwaves cascading from shore to shore. The egret that I’m stalking startles, raises its deceptively long wings, and escapes. The boat passes below us, creating more havoc on the other side. The 9 AM sun beats down on our necks. The birds have all left. It is time to go.
Just over the river and through the woods, we meet the river dogs.
It’s a happy pack of six — three adults, three puppies. The mother (Let’s call her Biscuit) is readily apparent — a white dog with large tan spots and folded ears, her belly drooping with six teats. The father, Cookie, is similarly coloured, though he has pointed ears. The third is Tux, a black hound with a white streak on his face, belly, and paws. The three puppies bear varying spots of white and tan, making it apparent that Tux is not their father. There’s a story about who Tux is and how he joined their pack, but I don’t speak Dog, so I suppose his tale will not be told.
My father dismounts, and they flock to him, very much aware of what he holds in his back pocket. There’s no fuss and no fighting as he feeds them by hand. He is not the first to feed them in this manner, nor will he be the last.
Cookie turns and noses my calf suddenly, and two of his pups have followed him to stare at me. I back up instinctively, protesting, but they follow undeterred. Spare a crumb. They seem to say. Don’t you have any? We’re starving out here, you know. It’s a rough life out here. Eventually, they turn back around when it becomes clear I cannot provide anything for them. My father folds up his empty pack of treats, and we get up and pedal away. They follow for a while but fall back as we put more distance between us and them.
The river dogs seem better situated than their urban kin. Yet, as I recall, it wasn’t so long ago that trucks rumbled down cracked red paths, and metal monsters chewed up and spat out the very earth below their feet. At least the human residents treat them well enough. As strays, this is as much of a home as they can get.
I don’t meet them again, so the fate of this particular pack remains a bit of a mystery to me. Still, something tells me they’re doing well.
Not all strays will be as lucky — a fact that becomes clear when I leave home.
Patches
I move to Selangor in April to attend university. My parents drive me and my belongings down, and when they leave, they take the car with them. So I walk. I can walk to campus from my shared house’s neighbourhood. I can’t walk thirteen kilometres to the nearest train station. So the birding stops, because I can only bird as far as my legs can take me. I don’t try to bird here, not right away, because this doesn’t feel like home, and I don’t feel inclined to roam neighbourhoods that don’t feel like home.
Still, it’s not so different in Selangor. There is a neighbourhood. There is a construction site. There is a river.
In fact, the neighbourhood and the construction site and the river have become one and the same. The river runs behind my house. A house at the end of my street is being demolished. I walk past three different lumber operations on my way to campus, making myself small as trucks and machinery rumble sluggishly past. Dry plumes of exhaust billow behind them, dispersing heat on the air and grazing my cheek.
On one occasion, I try to look out of the window in the back of the house — “try”, being the operative word. A metal monstrosity is parked against the wall, blocking my view of the river. If I could see it then, it would still be a miserable sight. It’s been stripped bare of all greenery, reduced to nothing but bare sand and crumbling rock. The riverside birds I expect to see will not be found here after all. The cause of such drastic reconstruction is due to a flood mitigation project, so I’m told, so I may judge it too harshly now. Still, it remains apparent that those who had once lived here had their lives and homes displaced.
Of course, wild birds cannot be called strays by any measure. What of the true strays?
I give the stray dogs here a wide berth because they are strange to me, and I am strange to them. From the very first day, one figure is distinct from the rest.
Patches is a scraggly white dog with mange — if not mange, then something else that explains her wretched condition. Her entire back half is bare, showing only splotches of grey and pink skin. One of her eyes is moist and rimmed with red, and when she stands close enough, you can hear her sniffing wetly. When I first see her, I think, Poor thing. She doesn’t have much left for this world.
Yet the days go by, and as weeks turn into months, Patches remains a constant sight. If she’s running on borrowed time, she doesn’t show it. Patches lives yet. Long live Patches.
Despite her frightful appearance, I soon learn that Patches poses no danger. She keeps away from humans as most strays do.
But this isn’t always the case, and some stray encounters get too close for comfort.
Bud
Across the road from my shared house in Selangor is a small field with a slide and a few benches. Time has passed, and the area now feels like some semblance of home, and I am ready to bird again.
Birding is best done in the early morning when the birds wake, and the sun is still young. By first light, I head out and trudge through the field in sandals and shorts. The overgrown grass scratches my skin, but I settle down on a tiny bench, ready to spot whatever comes my way.
The birds are chirping, the sun is rising, the neighbourhood dogs are barking…growling…
It is clear I have strayed somewhere I shouldn’t be. A dog is standing in front of me, and it is growling steadily. I don’t raise my head. This stray, unlike my prior encounters, views humans as danger. (And why shouldn’t it?)
I stand up and walk right back around. To my relief, it doesn’t give chase.
(Weeks after this incident, I will hear about how a friend of a friend who lives in the area was bitten by a stray dog while cycling. He gets a rabies shot afterward.)
Barks and pawsteps begin to sound across the neighbourhood. I will learn later that dogs are active during dawn and dusk, and I have picked a bad time to be out and about. Two dogs are blocking my path back home, heads raised with white teeth showing. I don’t take my chances. I step away and walk through a different row of houses, hoping to loop back around when the coast is clear.
The sound of pawsteps follows, and I glance back with apprehension. A black dog is following me. Running won’t help here, so I try to keep my pace brisk. I turn and walk down another street, hoping to shake my tail, but it is futile.
This dog runs ahead of me and lifts a leg to mark a car tyre, and I exhale, thinking that will be the end of it. But when I walk past, it hurries along and keeps pace behind me. The notion strikes then that this is, perhaps, a benevolent creature, guiding me out of this web of crossed lines and offended canine sensibilities. (Let’s call him Bud.)
Bud follows me as I make my way back to my street. He races ahead of me quite a few times, eager to mark various car tyres and grass strands as his territory. I notice then that his tail is missing. Lost in a fight or an accident, perhaps. Another stray’s story lost to time because I still don’t speak Dog.
We run into other dogs along the way. They yip and pace and stare us down, but with Bud by my side, it feels safe enough to press onward. We send a flock of pigeons on the ground into startled flight, and at least one cat peels away as we pass by. Then, my house comes into view, and our short-lived journey comes to an end. Bud tears away down another street as I reach the front gate, and that is the last I will ever see of his stump-tail.
Why does a stray dog follow you home? Perhaps a previous human’s kindness was enough to let it trust you. Perhaps it is searching for the home it once had.
So ends my dealings with the strays of Malaysia.
The Life of a Stray
Strays, by definition, have no place to call home. They simply carve out existences in places which do not have a place for them. Some strays are met with kindness, but more often than not with indifference, and then, more often than one wants to imagine, with cruelty.
If this description rings familiar to you, it is because we all lead the lives of strays at some point or another. There are homes that we can never return to. Homes that have been taken away from us. Like stray dogs, we seek homes in other people with no guarantee of success. Few among us are lucky enough to take our place in the world for granted.
My notes on strays end here, and a new question emerges.
If we make strays out of dogs, then what makes strays out of us?
This article was brought to you by Yang of Sundry Scribes, a Malaysian writing collective. Interested? Our Discord is open to writers and readers alike.
