Balinese dogs need looking after

Yudha Bantono, Contributor, Denpasar, Bali

Visit any village in Bali and you may notice hundreds of dogs roaming everywhere, be it in a market, home or alley. It seems hard to separate dogs from the lives of the Balinese.

Bali has probably the largest dog population in Indonesia.

Some dogs are lucky to have masters who take good care of them, while the rest have to rely on leftovers thrown away in the markets or temples.

Balinese view dogs as part of their family, a relationship that archaeological findings show started thousands of years ago.

In Gilimanuk, West Bali, for instance, archaeologists found a number of ancient funeral sites for indigenous Balinese people along with cemeteries for their pets including horses, dogs and chickens which were then considered as burial property.

In an excavation conducted in l964, a team of archaeologists dug up a grave to find a man buried with his dog.

Dog figures or symbols were also found in various art forms, including on many old buildings.

Dogs frequently became objects in Balinese traditional paintings and sculptures. Most that appeared in art works were usually local dogs commonly called anjing kampung (local dogs) or anjing kacang (peanut dogs).

They are called peanut dogs because their bodies remind us of peanuts, small and tiny.

There are two kinds of dogs in Bali, village or peanut dogs and Kintamani dogs, found mostly in resort area of Kintamani in Tabanan regency.

The Kintamani dogs were thought to have originated from China. The arrival of Chinese people on the island through Singaraja in North Bali was recorded between the 12th century and 16th century.

The Chinese migrants brought their chow-chow dogs which later bred with local ones.

Balinese people believe dogs play crucial roles in their lives. The animal, especially those which bear specific physical marks, are usually presented for holy scarification in the mecaru purification ceremony. These dogs usually have reddish skin with black spots on their mouths and tips of their tails. The dogs are believed to be able to cleanse the "dirty" universe.

Many dogs, however, belong to no one. They are roaming the villages and streets with wounds on their bodies. Many dead dogs are found lying on the city's main streets.

A local animal welfare organization Yudhistira Foundation conducted its most recent survey on local dog population last July in the Badung regency and in Denpasar. The survey involved 7,382 people from 1,864 families who owned 1,240 dogs.

The foundation's chairperson, Dr. Listriani, said for every six people there was one dog.

"If Bali has a population of three million, this means that the number of dogs could reach 500,000," she said.

But the dogs might be there in the long term.

A large number of Balinese people prefer to keep male dogs, usually throwing away female puppies onto the streets or beaches.

The growing number of restaurants and food vendors serving dog meat, popularly known as RW, may also play a part.