Going to the Dogs: Svaneti
Blog
It’s happened again. Someone got badly bitten. Not me this time, but still.
Last week it was a schoolteacher in her late twenties, walking her young daughter home after school. She was able to shield the child and paid the price of a forearm onto which the dog, which had slipped its chain somehow, latched and would not let go.
The girl sat silent in shock for two days after this. The dog’s owners took the mother to Mestia, some 30 km away, for stitches. No further action will be taken.
One wonders what it will take to change the “canine situation” in this province. After all, the bad old years of bandits terrorizing the place, headquartered in my village of Etseri, are long gone! Saakashvili took them out in a ten-helicopter raid, and that was that. Why do we still need such fierce animals guarding our properties?!
I occasionally visit some neighbors who are relatives of those same bandits, an unmarried invalid brother and sister in their sixties. Their dog, upon seeing the stick I unfailingly have with me, attacks it and gives it a good shake. “Hi, Tony, this is your throat I’m imagining in my jaws! Waiting for the day when you don’t have such protection, salivating with anticipation!”
I’ve already told them that, friends though we are, if the animal bites me I will kill it myself. It’s never chained up; apparently this can’t be done. I do also have a small can of pepper spray, unused yet, but also waiting its turn. I would probably use this outside the dog’s territory, so that there is no confusion about it being out of line.
I did also buy a combination flashlight and infra-sonic dog “blaster” in Tbilisi; it needs a 9-volt battery, and doesn’t work at all on the creatures anyway. No effect; they ignore it. I’m sure this is just bad luck, and I might try the best rated one I can find online. I was looking into solar-powered ones, which you can mount around your property as well, to keep dogs away (but not, say, poultry or cows). Really checking out all the possibilities.
Does a child have to be mauled, or someone killed? We did have one case, before I moved here, of a dog bite resulting in its death, plus the murder of its victim and someone else in the family of the dog’s owner in revenge killings. Does that sound a bit like… going too far?
I’ll just warn all potential tourists to Svaneti: never go walking without a strong stick, consider the pepper spray, and get vocal and even legal if you are bitten, or badly threatened. Some of these dogs are huge, particularly Caucasus Shepherds, and some are raised for illegal dogfights. The reputation for warm hospitality of Georgia can be all undone in an instant, trauma and injury result, and you will never be back.
Tony Hanmer has lived in Georgia since 1999, in Svaneti since 2007, and been a weekly writer for GT since early 2011. He runs the “Svaneti Renaissance” Facebook group, now with over 1800 members, at www.facebook.com/groups/SvanetiRenaissance/
He and his wife also run their own guest house in Etseri:
www.facebook.com/hanmer.house.svaneti
Tony Hanmer