Lucy was my favorite. At first I thought she was cranky and anti-social. She would stake out her place under the large table in the center of the restaurant and there she would lie. Whenever a human accidentally kicked her under the table she would utter a mean little growl. And if another dog wandered too close to Lucy's table she would dart out and snarl at it. This was clearly her territory.
Lucy was scrawny and ugly, a small knot of tan and black and brown, with bits of white thrown in for good measure. It doesn't even make sense to wonder about her breed—she had no breed, maybe never did, even deep back into her ancestry. She had a limp; her rear left haunch was withered and clearly smaller than her right side, like she had suffered some injury in her past. Her top teeth stuck out from her mouth, and her ears were half way between up and down. The thing that really tugged at my heartstrings was Lucy's age: she was clearly an old dog. She was greying around the muzzle, and had a definite stiffness to her gait. I couldn't say hold old, exactly. Maybe 8 or 9, which I reckon is fairly old for a third world mongrel.
Every morning after surfing, we gathered at the Casa Tucan restaurant for breakfast. I always ordered pancakes, which inevitably came with a huge pile of bacon on the side, even when I gesticulated wildly while repeating "no carne," which probably doesn't really mean "no meat" but was as close as I could get with my grossly inadequate Spanish. The first day I was horrified by the bacon—
the sheer size of the pile, and the fact that it was touching my pancakes. But there was Lucy, lurking under the table. I felt much better because the bacon would not go to waste.
Did Lucy rely on my bacon for survival? I have no idea. I still don't know whether Lucy had a human home somewhere in the little town of Playa Guiones. The staff at Casa Tucan said she didn't belong to anyone. She was just always there, hanging around the hotel. They said that she would figure out which guests would feed her and would attach herself to them. When they left, she would find someone new.
The Ticos clearly have fewer hang-ups than we Americans do about animals and contamination. The restaurant and bar at Casa Tucan were bustling with animal activity. The four resident dogs-Lucy, Huey, Maui, and Costello-wandered in and out among the tables, through the kitchen, down to the beach, and back. One day while we sat drinking soda the scrawny grey hotel cat trotted past with a bright green lizard in her mouth. Out behind the kitchen, iguanas sauntered back and forth along the little gravel paths, eyes bulging at us as if we were alien beings. Every eating establishment we visited had several animals wandering around among the tables.
What surprised me more than anything about Costa Rica—far more than other "cultural differences"—were the dogs. Dogs were everywhere, running alone along the road, walking alongside people, galloping alongside motorbikes, playing in the ocean. Some dogs were clearly attached to certain humans, like Taima, who belonged to Enrique, one of our surf instructors, and followed him like a shadow. But many of the dogs seemed quite on their own. Perhaps they had human homes and human companions, and simply spent their days out doing their own canine business. Or perhaps they were "strays." I couldn't really tell. I was amazed at the total absence of leashes and collars. The dogs had the run of the place. And it seemed, at least from the superficial perspective of a visitor, to be working pretty well. Never once did I encounter a dog who made me nervous, whose behavior seemed potentially unpredictable or aggressive. The dogs simply ignored me, for the most part. They seemed to have no particular need for human attention; I saw no moon eyes, no begging, no licking of hands, no barking to get attention. And despite the lack of leashes (perhaps because of it?), I never once saw an unfriendly dog-on-dog encounter. The dogs would trot up to one another, have a little sniff, and then be on their way. They seemed to have better things to do than get in fights, and didn't seem to feel the need to protect anything. Lucy's under-the-table warning growls were the closest thing I saw to canine aggression. Maybe the stifling heat and humidity simply mellows them out by draining them of the energy needed to get into trouble, or maybe the conditions under which they live are less anxiety-provoking than those in more "pet" oriented cultures like ours.
Even up to the last day I found myself whispering "Poor Lucy, I wish we could take you home," as I bent down and stroked her ears and neck. I had a fantasy about loading her up in a kennel and taking her back to Colorado, making her Maya's new sister, pampering her. She would have a bath (maybe several), a cozy bed to curl up on, true human companionship. She would have regular vet visits. I would be able to brush those funny sticky-out teeth. And she would have a leash and collar. And that's where I really got hung up in my fantasy. She has probably never worn a collar, and doesn't know the meaning of Leash. Her life has been one of her own making; she does what she pleases. I was proposing to her a life of captivity.
Did Lucy need saving? I don't know where she lived or how she survived, other than befriending tourists at the Casa Tucan. But I realized, as I fantasized about taking Lucy home—to a real home—that I was imposing on her my own beliefs about what constitutes a good life for a dog. I had imposed on her a kind of canine cultural imperialism. I had certain preconceived ideas about what makes dogs happy: living in a temperature-controlled human dwelling, wearing a pretty collar with lots of different tags, eating bagged kibble at times chosen by your human, going to the bathroom when told, being reproductively managed. Wait... this isn't sounding so good anymore. Is our form of pet-keeping really the ideal?
On our last morning, Lucy did something she had never done: she followed us down to the beach and lay in a hole in the sand while we had our morning surf lesson, and then she rose and followed us back up the dirt road to the Casa Tucan. Even though I wasn't really hungry, I ordered pancakes so Lucy could have her bacon. After showering and changing clothes, we wandered out to the bar, where we were to meet Peter, who would drive us to the Nosara airstrip. He arrived at 1:00, right on time. As I gathered my backpack and bags, I spotted Lucy watching me. I put down my things and walked across the bar to where she sat. I squatted down and stroked her head and whispered, "Goodbye Lucy. I'll miss you." Her tongue flicked out and brushed my nose. Then she plopped down on the cement and rolled on her back for one final belly rub.
