Pet dogs on a killing spree : scaling the peak of absurdity

Samarjit Kambam *

Dogs captured by trap cameras :: Pix - TSE

The land of Manipur is unique in many ways. Among the many, some of them are gossip mongering and buildup of hypes. The people of the state can substitute hunger with gossips. As long as gossips are there, the people find it eventful for the day or days. The people also enjoy hypes and digest them making the day meaningful.

The pet dogs were calm, tranquil and composed since the middle of this year. Come last quarter of 2018, the pet dogs are moving on packs at midnight on a killing spree of domesticated animals such as cows, goats, sheep, poultry fowls such as ducks and chickens. The stray dogs which are miniscule in our state remain lethargic as ever.

The scientists of Wildlife Institute of India came up with this scientific assumption after they came up with a picture of a pet dog attacking a domestic animal from their night vision tracking camera.

Since then, no further pictures of pet dogs have come up in the mass media. Subsequently, Hon’ble Forest Minister Shri Th Shyamkumar came up with a ruling that all pet dogs must be chained. Quite hilarious.

Now, any phantom assumptions can be made, such as… in 2019 it will be the turn of the domesticated cats to clowder together and go on a killing spree of poultry fowls at night which will be followed by studs of horses to kick-ass whatever that moves at night. So unpersuasive.

But such things happen in Manipur from one hype filled gossiping mouth to another, be they right or wrong, proven or otherwise. It is a known fact that pet dogs sporadically attack and kill poultry birds.

Such an incident took place at my household also where a neighbouring pet dog snatched away a chicken from the proximity of my house. It could not have happened had I kept the chick securely locked in the small poultry cage. Moreover, the pet dogs love chasing or running after kittens or cats. It is also a known fact that pet dogs that are not chained roam around in packs only during mating season.

Years back, I had had sleepless nights as packs of pet dogs of our neighbours came towards the vicinity of my house with the sole aim of mating with a female dog of mine, Oh! a bitch, I should say, but I hate using that word. I had been a night watchman to ward off the pack of pet dogs of my neighbours.

It was quite a herculean task. Being a natural instinct of the canines, I gave up and got myself acquainted with the whines, barking sounds of the competitive dogs and all the rustling sounds and gave up being a night watchman.

Everything became quite again after the mating season resulting into an outburst of a volley of puppies from the belly of my female dog, cute fluffyones of course. The enigmatic killing of domesticated animals had a not so humble beginning from Churachandpur district.

Pictures of cows, goats and sheep were flashed in the mass media with the whole abdomen completely wiped off. Definitely not the handiwork of pet dogs. Pet dogs mostly bark and ward off cattle only when their territory is intruded, but pet dogs eating away whole abdomen of cattle be it cows, goats or sheep doesn’t ring the thinking bellright as pet dogs are usually fed by their owners.

Then this enigmatic killing spread to every nook and corner of the state. There are tell-tales galore of encountering a vicious looking animal with claws, wings and long canines. There were uploads in Youtube and other social media sites about persons encountering the creature and narrating their ordeals with eyes filled with fear. One would narrate that the eyes of the creature are extra-wide and changes its colour from fiery orange to blood red to green.

Another would say that the creature looks like a flying squirrel.Someone would say that the creature looks like a werewolf. I wonder whether there is really a werewolf, for till now it is a mythical creatureas there is no concrete prove of its existence.

One would come up saying that the creature has long ears, saliva dripping tongue with long canines, eyes big as owl, long sharp claws, striped like a tiger yet having horse-like legs. A lady would claim that she was injured at the arm when the creature scratched her with its sharp claws but when the doctor insisted on giving injection to ward off diseases caused by bite or scratch from wild animals, she was later on found confessing that her injury was caused by scratch from the edge of a zinc roof-tin.

Since the last two months or so, we are digesting uncooked stories about the creature of apparition muddling our mind. As the exact look of the creature or creatures is still mired in controversy, any person with a ‘fear of the dark’ temperament will see anything at dark as suspicious wherever they look at be it an awkward looking bush, a slightly swaying plant, silhouettes of trees, big stone, whatever and cook up tales of coming across a so and so hideous looking creature.

In our hype generating and hype-loving land, it may not be wrong to mention that some are coming up with tale-tales on mass media with lot of spicy additives about the creature just for fun.

We the hype creating group of people have been talking about the creature and most of the days have been spent with spreading gossips about the creature being found here and there, being chased by people with sticks and weapons.

Well, half of the winter season has been spent with one of our most favourite recipe i.e. gossiping created by the hypesabout the unknown creature giving the people an adrenaline rushed gala time, a time to pass the time.

There are, however, some short video clips and pictures that went viral in social media sites. We have witnessed video clips of weird looking one-eyed dark coloured pug-like creature, of a chimpanzee look-alike climbing the storey of a building, picture of a squirrel look-alike with wings and having long beaks.

There are also video uploads of many in hospitals claiming to have been injured by unknown wild things. Some have come up that the wild thing that attacked humans is one bearing the scientific name chupacabra. The victims have described that the wild creature has wings.

Many are coming up with assumptions that there are three different kinds of such wild creatures roaming freely, one looking like a dog which have one eye in the middle of its face, second one looking like a monkey and the third one looking like a squirrel that can fly.

The writer is of the opinion that rampant forest fires and deforestation in the hills could have disturbed the habitat of most wild animals. There is high possibility that some wild animals hardly seen in the valley areas could be venturing from the hills towards the valley for search of food as the eco-system has been highly perturbed. Whatever the outcome is, it is a result of our own doings.