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| Sunday, 23 April 2006 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Of show dogs, street dogs and hori ballas Light refractions by Lucien Rajakarunanayake When the late Mr. S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, who brought the national dress into vogue in politics, was Prime Minister, he once wore a western three-piece suit complete with bow tie to a show of a kennel club. This prompted a journalist to ask Mr. Bandaranaike why he was not wearing his national dress, complete with blue shawl, on that occasion. The prompt response by Mr. Bandaranaike, himself a lover of pedigreed dogs, and a great wit too was that he wore the national dress for important occasions and as this was a dog or balu event he had chosen the appropriate dress.
I was reminded of this on reading a piece in The Island last Tuesday, in its Kennel Corner, which was titled "Show dogs and Hori Ballo". The writer who is a proud owner of pedigreed dogs laments the latest craze of people to enter what is obviously a dog's race of breeding for profit and prizes, and lowering the standards at kennel club events when "Show Dogs" as he calls them are put on show. Just as in any other competitive sport in this country, it is obvious from what is said that standards have gone down to the vulgar when "Show Dogs" are put on show by the kennel clubs of today. He says that there are some members who are in the class of hori ballo (mangy dogs), who meet the judges earlier and come to the ring with their dogs. One can easily dismiss all this as being another case of something going to the dogs - this time it's dog shows. The writer of the Kennel Corner may have his contempt for those who are crooked in the dog breeding and kennel business. But what beats me is his description of such persons as hori ballo which is a denigration of dogs, and not humans. It's a word often used to describe the street or community dogs, which the Colombo and Kandy Municipal Councils in particular and some dog haters refer to as dirty stray dogs. It would have been better if the writer had borrowed a word from the trade unions who call a black-leg in a strike as a horikadaya, a very apt denigration of those humans who are the pits in the kennel world too. The pure-bred and cross-bred craze has really caught on these days, not just with those who are over-breeding pedigreed dogs for profit, with the only beneficiaries being veterinary surgeons who are today fast reaching the comparative income levels of dentists in the USA. These animals are so vulnerable to disease and also have congenital disorders due to constant in-breeding. But the social ladder dictates that one sign of "class" today is to own and be able to talk of one's German shepherd, Doberman, Rottweiler, Golden Retriever, Bull Terrier, Boxer, Yorkshire Terrier, Afghan Hound, Labrador, Dalmatian or whatever else that falls into this high class category. This is bound to give great pleasure to more and more of these profiteers in the "breeds" of dogs that they cause to increase and multiply so callously, to be among the wealthiest in society. At some watering holes in Colombo, it is sometimes disgusting to listen to people boast of how much beef one gives to a German shepherd, or the walks that are never done without their Dobermans or Ridgebacks and other breeds. Each one swears by one's own favourite vet surgeon, and never fails to recommend the latest imported dog food available in select shops only shopped in by the stinking rich. It's a real dog's world of the rich and those aspiring to be rich or be rich look-alikes. The breed is what matters in this dog's world, where humans rave about the special characteristics of these imported species, while often promoting the destruction of the local, native, community dog, referred to with contempt as stray dogs, highly exaggerating their danger to us humans. I read an interesting editorial in The Island on Thursday which said we have become a people whose motto is "Be Lankan, Buy Foreign". It could not have been better said. Being Sri Lankan, at least in words (certainly not in mind) and Buying Foreign and boasting about it, is what has happened to most of the "Show Dog" owners of today. It's the breed that matters, and as long as it is not anything native, so much the better. They would be happier still if the native dog, that may by chance mate with theirs and lower its dog caste ranking, is wiped off altogether. These foreign breed "Show Dog" lovers are not aware of all the damage those parayas (Sinhalese-foreigners) from the West who came here from the early 16th Century did to everything that was native to us. They did it so well that today a local dog, without claims to foreign lineage in its breeding is called a paraya, an epithet more apt to those imported fashionable breeds. They take pride in the foreign DNA in their pets that are more inbred
than is good for their health and survival. Most of them are not suitable
for the Sri Lankan climate. But who cares, as long as they are the best
topic of fashionable discussion and "Show Dog" display? |
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