DOGS AND SHARKS

By Joe Race

(Author – “Moon Over Manila”)

You’ve heard Mom’s old saying, “Make do with what you have, quit complaining,” or the basic USMC core value, “Do the best with what you have, improvise and adapt,” or the redneck saying “Get ‘er done!” Well, that’s exactly what Raoul Garza did on the remote island of Saipan, USA. In a weekly meeting, the Mayor decided one day to have a dogcatcher (to be politically correct, now called an animal control officer) to round-up the stray animals, especially the vicious ones, and to pick-up the road kills. As luck would have it, Raoul happened to be in the room. He was a heavy equipment operator by trade, but he owned a dog, and that seemed to be a good enough reference for his new job. When Raoul objected to the job change, the mayor replied, “Caramba, Raoul! You know more about dogs than any of us. You’re qualified. I’ll even give you a $50 raise every month.”

So Raoul became a dogcatcher on the 14-mile-long remote island called Saipan. He was a big strong fellow, dark from the sun, and capable of doing anything physical. Dog catching would just be another challenge for him.

For those that missed geography class too often, Saipan is the main island of the Commonwealth of the Marianas Islands, a USA territory separated from the North America continent by thousands of ocean miles. It’s on the eastern beginning of Asia, and being on the west side of the dateline, is generally touted, “As where America’s day begins!” The peaceful island was being over-run with “boonie” mongrel dogs and feral cats, left over from the old New England whaler and Spanish galleon days, and the animals had interbred for hundreds of years. Veterinarians were few and far between, not that they cared much about the mongrels because the marlin fishing was so damn good.

The island cats’ main jobs were to control the rats and other rodents. Their inbreeding had resulted in a long, gangly, and very ugly, species of felines. They were mean, hissing little bastards. But they were good at nabbing the rats and shrews and cleaning up garbage. They had to be good at scavenging just to eat and flourish, because no one thought to feed them “tasty treats” from the pet section in the supermarket.

The dogs turned out to be some form of tan-colored, long-legged mutt with mange, other strange diseases, and a little frothy at the mouth, but no rabies thus far. Their main jobs were for protecting houses and property, and being noisy and vicious. The young pups, if healthy, were headed for a spicy soup or on a barbeque skewer. Every once in awhile, a visiting tourist pedigree dog would end up in a pot, or interbreed with the island mutts on a warm sultry night, and the result would be little boonie dogs with giant paws or yard-long tails, and often a strange array of hide colors with different lengths of hair. Quite a sight, like nature had a sense of humor, but much in demand for a possible taste change on the beach BBQ.

When Raoul came to the finance officer to find out about the supportive funds for his new assignment, necessities like a kennel, animal food, vet care and some gas for his truck, he soon learned there was no budget. He was told “maybe next year.” Ever pragmatic, Raoul had kept his truck from the Road Department, and was quite efficient at siphoning gas out of the government heavy equipment and big rigs. From scraps of wire and tin, he built a large wire cage for the back of his truck and was soon seen rounding up strays and picking up the road kills.

Right away, he ran into trouble on the home front. The road kills were merely dropped at the dump, which was adjacent to the ocean, and were soon decomposing in the hot sun and oozy liquid draining into the lagoon. There were no island predators, like wolves and sea gulls, to clean up the debris. The dump got real stinky and people that visited the dump to dispose of their trash were continually annoyed by the smell of rotting flesh, and the environmentists saw decaying bodies leaking into the pristine waters. They were going ballistic.

Raoul’s next problem was taking care of the captured strays, like where and how to feed them and house them. He didn’t want to euthanize them right away (which was effectively done with a .22 cal. bullet) because some of the mutts looked like pets. Several were groomed and appeared healthy. His wife, Imelda, started complaining about all the dog crap in the fenced yard and all the noise at night was bothering her and the neighbors, while the mutts were establishing their territory, and the males were claiming their seasonal bitches.

The answer to the road kill problem came to him next day, as he was trying to apprehend a whining, wounded canine along a cliff line near Agingan Point. Raoul could see that the mutt was badly injured and covered with mange. He slipped on his gloves and high boots, and chased the mutt to the cliff line, where it snapped and snarled. In instinctive response to the violent behavior, he simply kicked it over the forty-foot cliff and into the open sea. The mutt was too weak to struggle long, and as it was about to slip under the water, a large, black fish came by, bit into the body and dragged it under the water. The area was noted for its sharks and many fishermen had lost their catch on a line to sharks from below.

Raoul knew he was on to something very significant. It would solve his road kill problem and also recycle nature’s bounty. He went back to his truck and dragged out a cat body and a dog carcass, and threw them off the cliff. The sharks must have been on full alert, because when the bodies hit the water, there was a terrific frenzy of swishing and snashing sharks. Gray top fins kept popping up through the water. The dead animal bodies were soon gone. Raoul was very satisfied with his new problem-solving technique.

However, the problems with the live dogs continued to be major headaches. Raoul had no government money for food, vet care, or grooming supplies, and his wife was complaining about expenses. Plus, the dogs continued to be loud and obnoxious at night and all the plants and grass in their yard had long ago died from urine and feces contamination. The cats were not a problem as they tended to escape custody within a day or two, even if they were locked up in secure cages. Raoul had a hunch that his daughter was releasing them as fast as he caught them in his special traps.

Two of the captured dogs showed signs of distemper or some other contagious disease. Raoul took them along on his daily ride to cliff, and off they went, along with an injured, but dying cat. The sharks circled quickly and two of them actually came up above the water and looked in his direction. They had very evil eyes. He waved and the sharks ducked back into the ocean depths.

Raoul generally liked dogs and he was able to give away a few, healthy mutts to his friends who needed watch dogs. He enjoyed frolicking with the dogs, throwing sticks and balls, and watching them wrestle in the yard. But he feared the wrath of his wife about the dog crap, and for good reason – her champion, award-winning flower garden had turned to dust and bare soil. He just couldn’t keep up with the piss and shit. So on a daily basis, he would cull his pack of mutts by one or two, and sometimes, when he found a mangy dog, old or deteriorating, it never got to the yard. It went off the cliff with the road kills and the culled mutts from his yard.

Raoul appealed several times to the Mayor’s Office for financial support, but the answer was always the same, “Maybe next year.” The mayor had received several compliments about how much better the roads looked without smelly, bloated carcasses, or vicious dogs threatening children on their way to school, or even worse, biting the tourists.

Raoul’s wife was also happier and he enjoyed her embraces once again after several weeks without any “sugar.” The numbers in the pack of dogs in the yard decreased noticeably after every friendly session in the bedroom. Before long, the yard was empty of dogs and cats, and the wife resumed planting. The neighbors started visiting again.

But for Raoul, his new, practical, inexpensive way of keeping expenses down came to an abrupt end. He managed to nab a larger dog that was obviously a boonie dog mixed with a Labrador Retriever breed. It was well-cared for, healthy and even had its nails trimmed. His wife has just planted a new garden of vegetables, which she surrounded with bright, colorful flowers. Raoul was torn. He knew that someone might claim this new dog, but he decided that the only answer was over the side. He wasn’t about to irritate his wife and ruin her garden, and return to celibacy.

Raoul figured no one would ever know that he had had taken care of the dog in his own way. Little did he know that several teenagers had seen him hook up this new dog. So when the owner came home from work, saw his dog was missing, he went to the Mayor’s Office to claim his pet. The mayor called Raoul, and the best Raoul could utter was, “I think the dog escaped and ran off.”

Meanwhile, the owner talked to the observant teenagers and soon learned the possible truth – that his dog had probably been thrown over the cliff. There are few secrets on the island. Raoul had been spotted by joggers several times throwing other dogs and cats over the side, and the divers had noticed an increase of sharks in the cliff area. In fact, the SCUBA shops put out an advisory not to dive in the area of the point. No divers had been attacked but it was better to be safe than sorry.

The dog owner made an official complaint about his missing dog. The ‘dog-lovers” and “do-gooders” got involved and managed to get the story on the front pages of the local papers. The environmentalists stayed quiet on this issue.

In a few months, the whole episode gradually faded away, as did the dogcatcher position. No one had seen Raoul throw that particular dog over the cliff, and his lawyer had advised him, “Say nothing to anyone.” So he kept mum.

Meanwhile, a new mayor was elected into office, and things went back as before. Raoul was ecstatic about being away from the dogs and cats and the political fallout, and just plain happy about being back on his bulldozer, cutting roads through jungles and repairing eroded beaches.

The animal problem continued; sick, underfed animals, dead carcasses along the roadway and vicious dog attacks on innocent passerby’s. Leaking animal corpses were again draining into the pristine lagoon from the dump. An Animal Control Program was discussed again in the Mayor’s Office, and the meeting ended with, “Maybe next year…”

And the island divers will tell you that the sharks are schooling up as always at the point. It was ingrained in their peabrains that this was a good spot for a tasty morsel, and they keep waiting and watching the cliff.

Note to island visitors: Before you go diving and you value your limbs, find a map and dive somewhere else. You could be mistaken for a furry boonie dog…Or if your wife has recently taken out a large life insurance policy, be hesitant if she wants to take you to Agingan Point to watch the sunset!

Joe Race is retired from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and has completed tours of police assignments in several US states, Saipan, Kosovo and Bosnia. He currently lives in Saipan where, among other activities, he writes prolifically. (Friends wonder in amazement where he finds the energy and motivation.) In his free time, Joe helps build houses for impoverished people through Habitat for Humanity in the Philippines and Botswana, Africa. He is the author of seven books, including “Moon Over Manila,’ ‘Continuin On,’ ‘Sitting on a Goldmine,’ ‘and ‘Hawaiian Paniolo.’ Joe is a regular contributor to tedlerner.com.
To learn more about Joe and his books, visit his website at www.josephrace.com