Dogs are such a part of island life in Rarotonga, a "caution, crossing" sign has a picture of a man, a woman and a dog, Lisa Scott discovers.
Here I am in the Cook Islands, sans economist. Good thing too, he would faint at the price of beer and he’s hard to lift.
Although he’d love the fact that fresh fruit - bananas, coconuts, grapefruit the size of footballs - is pretty much free, falling at your feet. On your head if you’re not careful.
Yet the locals eat huge amounts of Bully McCow (as they call tinned corned beef), and two-minute noodles; explaining the wide loads straddling some of the scooters.
I’m a guest of two incredible Kiwi women, Robyn and Steph, caretakers of Rarotonga’s SPCA.
Rarotonga is like New Zealand was 30-35 years ago, dogs wandering free, chasing cars and sometimes losing a leg in the process.
There are two dogs in the house and nine at the SPCA at the moment, all of whom need walking, feeding and a bit of company, same as anyone.
I’ve never had much to do with dogs and to begin with they reminded me of circling sharks, or kids with ADHD, but after a few days it’s clear they have their own distinct personalities (not like cats, who have a unified, up-yours personality).
Dogs are waggy-tailed, bum-sniffing butlers: "What can I do for you today, Sir?" Eager, trusting, emotionally uncomplicated, they talk in excited barks:
WHAT. ARE. YOU. EATING?!
I. LIKE. TO. EAT. THINGS!
I. WOULD. LIKE. TO. EAT. THAT!
To hurt a dog is to hurt a true innocent, yet they do get hurt here and the why of it is very strange.
Rarotonga has 10,000 people and 4000 dogs. All the woofers want to do is hang out, follow kids and tourists around and have a bit of fun. Dogs are such a part of island life a "caution, crossing" sign has a picture of a man, a woman and a dog.
Many have large bodies and short little legs, thanks to a prolific basset hound who was here in the 1990s. Either that or, rumour has it, one of the Queen’s corgis got out.
You can lap Rarotonga on a scooter in an hour and if someone goes less than the speed limit of 50 there’s a traffic jam right round the island.
There are two buses, the clockwise and the anti-clockwise, looping the island all day, passing large white above-ground graves (I think it would be nice to have Mum in the front garden. That’s not a threat, Mum) decorated with tiles from the almost, never-was Sheraton.
The dogs have the run of this ghostly place. Dilapidated and graffitied, it was built thanks to a $52 million contract with an Italian bank.
At the sod-turning ceremony weeks before it was due to open, angry residents gatecrashed the proceedings, thrusting a spear into a commemorative plaque and splitting it in two.
There’s talk of a murder, workers injured, fraud, money laundering, links to Mafia, the curse of Viamaanga and Winston Peters, not in that order. Now it’s a toothless shell: doors windows and roof shingles gone, not stolen but repurposed. Sunken baths and other immovable fittings are cracked and broken. No-one does anything; it sits there, millions in prime real estate mouldering into the unmown grass.
Plenty of questions remain, but as Parliament sits only eight days a year, answers will be hard to come by.
But this is a place where safety razors are locked behind glass, machetes freely available. Contradictions abound.
For all that Rarotongans are marvellously warm, churchgoing folk, they have a queer streak of apathy, verging on cruelty when it comes to animal welfare.
The dogs here are 99% not aggressive, (pitbulls are not allowed, they are the Voldemorts of Rarotonga) and 98% owned, if loosely.
It is impossible to keep an old dog on the porch in Raro, there are no fences. And this is the problem: even a registered, neutered dog can be picked up by the dog ranger, shot and, word is, eaten.
The police allegedly do a brisk trade selling dog meat for $12/kg. Expats joke that if your dog is missing, you think twice about going out for dinner that night.
There is a lot of poisoning (some think deliberate, mostly it’s negligence): rat poison, paraquat and, of course, overpopulation.
Steph and Robyn tackle the last by taking turns to cruise the island, coaxing dogs into their van (a bit like Ted Bundy) and taking them off to be desexed.
Waking up later that evening, a bit woozy - how like a woman to befriend you, then take your testicles - they go about their lives as before, with a tattoo on their ear - perhaps less likely to get in a strange van.
Good is being done here. However, change will take patience, respect and much time, even longer in dog years.
