The first encounter with pet care in Dhaka

I had to take my Oreo pup to a vet in the mega city of Dhaka. The expat's choices here, in a city of sixteen million people?

Number 1. Doctor Hossain. This is a guy that first came to our house to groom our pooch. A friend of mine had a really bad experience with him. After getting the money to perform a blood test, he would not produce a lab report. The Embassy had to call and threaten with a police investigation for him to come up with a piece of paper that turned out to be fake.

Number 2. Doctor Siamak (an Iranian expat). I talked to him when I was looking to test a cow before sacrifcing it. Lots of experience with large animals, mixed reviews with dogs. He operated on one of our friend's dog and had to come back almost an year after to adress an infection caused by the "disolvable" stiches he put in (came to find out, there are no such thing as disolvable when it comes to dogs).

Number 3. Doctor Azmat. He treated Oreo's girlfriend last month, with positive reviews.

So, I decided to go with Doctor Azmat, at Gulshan Pet Animal Clinic.

This is the entrance to Doctor Azmat's clinic

Sheep outside ready to be sacrificed

The pet clinic

A kitty having some sort of an enema performed by two technicians

Oreo on the operating table after the shot (not sure if the paper was current edition)

From one the clasic pieces of Romanian literature I studied in school I still remember this hilarious part:

"Our industry is admirable, is sublime, but it is completely non-existent!"

This is exactly how I felt today relative to the pet care here. I am praying really hard Oreo stays healthy during our Dhaka stay.

Forgive me Master for I am unclean

I wrote into one of my previous post that, by in large, Muslims do not like dogs. As a non-Muslim, I find this attitude a little bit hard to understand. Every time, somebody enters our home I have to make sure I restrain Oreo just so he would not touch someone who does not want to be touched by a dog.

People I spoke with gave me different account about Islam and dogs that I had to research further.

Islamic religion has the Quran that can be compared to the Christian Bible. There are also the Hadiths, a supplementation for the Quran. The Quran is the word of Allah, whereas the hadith is the word of Prophet Muhammad. Hadiths started being written hundreds of years after Muhammad's death.

Here are some learning from the hadiths:

1. Allah's Apostle ordered that the dogs should be killed
2. Allah's Apostle forbade taking the price of a dog, money earned by prostitution and the earnings of a soothsayer.

3. If somebody keeps a dog that is neither used for farm work nor for guarding the livestock, he will lose one Qirat (of the reward) of his good deeds everyday.

4. Once Gabriel promised the Prophet (that he would visit him, but Gabriel did not come) and later on he said, "We, angels, do not enter a house which contains a picture or a dog."

5.  Allah's Apostle said, "If a dog drinks from the utensil of anyone of you it is essential to wash it seven times."

6. Prayer is annulled by a dog, a donkey and a woman (if they pass in front of the praying people).
7. It is your duty to kill the jet-black (dog) having two spots (on the eyes) for it is a devil.

I find it interesting that the hadiths with negativity towards dogs, directly contradicts the teachings of the Quran. If a Muslim follows the hadiths he will dislike dogs and in some circumstances may even try to hurt them. As a side note, if you ever take a look at the hadiths many of them are violent in nature, while the Quran seems to discourage violence.

To conclude, on a negative note, I am not sure if our house will ever be visited by angels while here in the Desh. We will also have to accept being unclean. On the positive, we might not have to kill Oreo, since he is only part black. And there is definitely no plan on making any money out of selling our dog or practicing prostitution.

Oreo, our diplodog (Part 2)

It is really odd. Dogs are not allowed in parks or gardens in Bangladesh. That is ironic, to say the least, since the parks are full of strays. So, walking them them becomes an issue. There are no sidewalks, or art least not free of debris, so you pretty much have to dodge cars and rickshaws on the dusty roads. On top of it, you really have to be mindful of the strays. Whoever is walking a dog has to be "armed" with a big stick to fend the off. A colleague from the Embassy learned that the hard way, after her dog got bit.
Which brings me to the vet care, or lack of thereof.

Veterinary health care here is pretty much non existent. There are no veterinary clinics, except for a military structure, no x-rays, no analysis, so basically nothing! There are two known veterinarians, one of them an Iranian refugee. He loves animals, and does what he can. Luckily we did not have to try him, I only talked to him on the phone so far.Dr. Siamak, +8801711561155He does home visits, has no real surgery place and does perform small operations at your home.

Grooming saloons? Forget it. Will do it at home.

Walks? Will use the roof top.

Exercise? Will run with the Marines.

and crash in bed soon after!

Oreo, our diplodog (Part 1)

Meet Oreo, our sweet, world-traveled dog that’s new to Dhaka and Bangladesh. He responds to English, Romanian and now, to a little bit of Bangla.

Oreo was a young puppy when Cristina caved in and allowed the kids to get him from a small pet shop in Michigan. Childhood was happy there, no big surprises, chasing away squirrels or the neighbor's cat, being spoiled by all the kids on the street...

And then one day, without being consulted, he became a foreign service dog or a diplo-dog. The owners decided they would move to Bangladesh for at least two years.

For most families working in American embassies and consulates, having a pet is just out of the question because of the hassle of travel, but that was not the case with Oreo's family. He was too loved to be left behind and therefore started traveling himself, first Washington, then Seoul, Bangkok, then Dhaka. Travel was not easy. Not eating, drinking or going to the bathroom for more then 14 hours on the Washington-Seoul flight was a great challenge, but he did it. A number of flight attendants almost had heart attacks when they saw him in Cristina's lap and one of them almost spilled her coffee tray in my lap.

In Bangladesh dogs are not happily accepted. After all, it’s a Muslim country, where dogs (as well as pigs) are considered unclean animals. There are, however, a lot dogs around, most of them strays, living on the streets!

Their condition? Let's just say that every single time coming home after seeing the stray first thing we do is hug Oreo. Only if he would realize how lucky he is!

Dog hair everywhere

We have not been able to find a reliable dog groomer in Dhaka. That is not to say it does not exist.

Most of the expat pet owners we know prefer to do the grooming themselves. The results vary widely to say the least. In the couple of months we have been here, I have noticed some the most hilarious dog haircuts. So, armed with a machine we ordered online from Walmart, Cristina and I got to work on grooming Oreo this morning. We are fortunate that his size is small, so we did not have to sedate him like our friend Amber had to do with her dog. It took her three hours, two more people to help and a sedative slipped in the dog's food.

Our result? We are not really proud of it, but then again we do not plan on turning it into a full time career.

Dhaka fit or Training with the Marines

Every Sunday and Wednesday, the Marines of Detachment Dhaka invite everybody in the mission to the Dhaka Fit!,a training program at the US Embassy Annex Field. Since it is an excellent way to support, motivate, and spend time with our favorite Marines and at the same time get in a good work out, the whole family joined, including Oreo.

No, we do not look like this, even though some of our Marines come pretty close

We look a little bit more like this:

And, yes, we did almost get killed by one of our favorite Marines the first time we joined the program. He pushed so hard and tried to motivate me with quotes like: "Pain is just weakness leaving the body!" :)


And here is Oreo, after the training program is over and we are home: