A common expression in Jamaica nowadays is that the country has gone to the dogs, meaning that things have deteriorated badly and many Jamaicans are living a dog’s life — an unhappy and oppressed existence.

Needless to say, it remains to be seen whether the average dog out there would agree with that assessment. After all, it has been said that a dog is a man’s best friend. In the meantime, so many Jamaicans “live like puss and dog”.

The Concise Oxford English Dictionary defines a dog as a domesticated carnivorous mammal, probably descended from the wolf, with a barking or howling voice, an acute sense of smell, and non-retractable claws.

Jamaicans, for the most part, have had a love-hate relationship with dogs. Many, particularly in the lower socio-economic bracket of the country, have them around their homes, especially mongrels, and see them as effective in warding off intruders.

Meanwhile, in the upper echelons of the society, dogs take on a privileged status as the rich and famous have within their midst canines of varying pedigrees, from shih-tzu to pit bulls. Interestingly, scammers who have come into vast amounts of wealth use the ownership of pedigree dogs to flaunt their new status to the extent that they even pay some of their lowly friends to “walk the dog”.

While growing up in the country, one of the favourite pastimes of us boys was to chase and stone dogs. The poor things would run for their lives while yelping and sometimes turning around to growl, gnashing their teeth in defiance. Alas, dogs continue to suffer that fate, especially the stray ones.

But, despite this penchant for cruelty towards dogs, having them as pets and guardians can be most rewarding. Children, and even adults, can become most attached to their dogs, in the same way that the dogs adore and revere them. I recall having a pet dog whose name was Brownie and who was my constant companion until one Saturday morning he ended up on the main road and was killed by a passing motorist. I wept uncontrollably and insisted that he be given an appropriate burial, which he got, even though my father remarked off the cuff, “Cho, him was just a dog.”

Way back then, too, there was that popular American song, How Much Is That Doggie In The Window? while back home it was “dog war a ‘Matches Lane’, you can’t go dung deh”.

Then there are the many sayings and expressions relating to our four-footed friends. Among them: “Sorry fi mawga dawg, mawga dawg tun round bite you.” Which means you go out of your way to help someone and they turn around and act in a most ungrateful way. Then there are others, such as, “Dawg gwine nyam you supper”; “Puss and dawg don’t have the same luck”; “In front of dog is Mr Dog, behind him back is dawg.”

It is to be noted that, in terms of connotation, “dawg” is usually used in a derogatory sense, while “dog” is used to show respect. But, in the streets, among ghetto youth, dawg means friend. So we often hear young men greeting each other with: “Whaa gwaan dawg?” Or, “Is my dawg dat!”

By the way, who or what is a pedigree mongrel?

One foreign custom at which many Jamaicans usually turn up their noses is the fact that eating dogs is a delicacy among the Chinese. I recall growing up hearing the expression, “Chiney nyam dog,” and I remember during the early years of my journalistic pursuits doing a story in which some concerned citizens were alleging that a certain Chinese restaurateur was using dog meat in his patties. They used the fact that he was raising quite a large number of dogs on the roof of his building as evidence of his enterprise. Well, he denied it vociferously, and in a strange twist, some patrons declared that he had the best-tasting patties in town, which I referred to in my story as “bow wow patties”.

In our politically tribal culture, dogs have a special place and are even decked out in party colours during election campaigns. And there is even a case in which a party hack once declared that even the “dog dem inna har yard” were followers of her party. In one somewhat bizarre case, an owner of several dogs declared that she had given each of them the name of a political opponent based on their respective proclivities.

In England, where dogs have always been revered, there is the story of Alexander Pope, a famous literary figure of his time, who gifted a pup to the Prince of Wales in 1736 to guard his house in Kew. On the pup’s collar the poet engraved the following: “I am His Highness’s dog at Kew; pray tell me, Sir, whose dog are you?” Political pundits at the time sought to interpret this tongue-in-cheek remark as alluding to the fact that all of us are either masters or servants.

In the Jamaican context, many citizens align themselves to either the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) or the People’s National Party (PNP) and, in a real way, behave like Pavlovian dogs by blindly and without reservation responding to their respective parties’ diatribe without thinking critically and taking a rational and patriotic position. Others hold on single-mindedly to religious, ideological, or other preferred beliefs or positions which, in essence, make them slaves to their preferences rather than masters of their destiny.

As Bob Dylan puts it: “You may be an ambassador to England or France. You may like to gamble, you might like to dance.You may be the heavyweight champion of the world. You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls. But you’re gonna have to serve somebody…Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord. But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”

Then again, in the final analysis, one will have to decide whether one wants to be a top dog or an underdog. And whichever way the cookies crumble, “every dog must have him day, every puss him 12 o’clock!” Go figure!

Lloyd B Smith has been involved full-time in Jamaican media for the past 45 years. He has also served as a Member of Parliament and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives. He hails from western Jamaica where he is popularly known as the Governor. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or lbsmith4@gmail.com.