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It's three a.m. Do you know where your dogs are?
If you're in Mexico, you'll know where half the
dogs in town are. Shortly before three, a dog several
neighborhoods away sees a ghost and starts barking
its lungs out. The next-door dog picks up the alarm
and spreads it to the next house. Soon the whole
neighborhood is yapping and yowling, and the din
spreads in improvisational riffs, neighborhood
to neighborhood, until it reaches you, lying wide-eyed
at an hour when REM sleep should be knitting up
your ravel'd sleave of care.
These are not indoor pets; they're roof dogs,
or perros de techo. Found throughout Mexico, these
dogs spend all day and night, every day, on the
flat roofs of homes as protection against intruders.
Often abused or neglected, these canine sentinels
patrol the edge of the roof, barking at anything
that moves, or anything that stirs their imagination.
American expats in Mexico bemoan this and other
forms of mistreatment of animals, but some acknowledge
that owners and commercial breeders in the US aren't
immune from similar charges.
Menacing barks cascading through the canine community
deep in the dark hours of night is a common occurrence.
(I experienced them, along with vociferous roosters
with no sense of time, in San Miguel de Allende,
an arty expat haven near Guanajuato.) Long-time
residents sleep right through the open-air jam
session, just as I sleep through the sound of cars
galumphing over the speed bump right outside my
bedroom window. But newcomers can find themselves
frantically grasping at the shredded ends of sleep
before the next round of barking begins.
The earliest hours of the morning can be a time
of reveries and free associations. One morning,
as I wondered whether sleep or another round of
barking would arrive first, I also wondered about
our own internal roof dogs.
What ghost sets off the frantic, angry barking
in our souls? How do other folks' roof dogs set
us off, infecting us with their frenzy, and leaving
us howling at our friends, our family, or our unfed,
untamed lives? We may find these roof dogs when
we're behind the wheel of our car, at work competing
for the attention of a neglectful boss, in our
relationships with friends and family, or anywhere
we're super-vigilant for potential harm or injury.
What part of us is always on patrol, watchful
for any and all threats, real or imagined? Is this
an unfed and neglected aspect of ourselves that
we need to lead down into the garden, feed, and
skritch behind the ears?
I can't answer these questions for myself, and
much less for anyone else. But when the barking
of the roof dogs of our souls wakes us up at three
a.m., it might be a good idea to go up and soothe
them rather than throw a shoe at them, roll over,
and try to get back to sleep.
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