The Love for Dogs

Alvy is a very lucky dog owned by my niece, Sara

Alvy can sleep in Sara's bed anytime

If I were a dog, I would be so happy to be owned by an American family. 
Do you know why?

Okay, let's talk about how people treat their dogs here in the US compares to how we Balinese treat our dogs in Bali.

If you see the pictures here, you will be able to imagine how affectionatly people in the US treat their dogs. The dog in the picture was sleeping on the pillow in the bed of his owner. The dogs in the US have special food, special plate, a special place to sleep inside the house and sometimes they sleep in the same bed with the owner. While in Bali, we don't even let our dogs go inside the house. Here, there are some beauty salons for dogs, spa for dogs and also they have to walk their dogs regularly everyday. I had a chance to walk our two family's dogs to the park nearby our house. On the way to the park, we met a few people also walking their dogs. They greeted our dogs and we had to speak for our dogs. When we walked our dogs, we needed to bring some plastic bags to put the dog's poop if they pooped in the street or in the park. I was just so happy that I did not need to scoop dog's poop while taking our dog to the park. I bet I would puke if i have to do that….:)

"What cute dogs, what are their names? How old are they?", these are very common greetings when we meet people on the way.

And we usually responded,"Thank you, this one is M a year old and that one is A five years old".

They also bathe the dogs regularly and some people take their dogs for grooming in the beauty salon special for pets.

While in Bali in general, the dogs just go anywhere on the streets and sometimes they get killed by trucks or by other vehicles on the streets. The dogs in Bali belong to people but they only feed their dogs at night if there is any left-over from dinner table. The Balinese do not value dogs as much as their other pets that can bring them income.

Recently, there have been many dogs eliminated in Bali due to the rabies outbreak. However, there are some NGOs that tried to save the dogs population in Bali. Actually one of my students did a volunteer work at one of the foundations in Bali.

Now that I saw how people in the US treat their dogs in comparison with us Balinese, I think that it will be great if we can treat our dogs in Bali a little bit better than the way we treat them now. The dogs also have feelings just like us human beings. But that statement sounds very dramatic because in Bali, there are still many people who struggle for surviving their own lives; let alone to take care of dogs in a better way. Well, after all, it is just a hope, who knows someday we can reach the point when we can treat our dogs like the way the American treat theirs. http://www.wayan.ariati/facebook.com