Pets in Cambodia and Booze

Drinks Dog

This is a true story about the recent misadventures of Sok-Sok, a scrawny off license dog, now “ Scrawny off license dog" is not an officially recognised Crufts breed, but it is one that will be instantly recognisable to anyone in Cambodia.

Sok-Sok hangs out all day at Khmer Booze stall near my house, the equivalent of my neighbourhood off license. She belongs to Chea, the store manager.

(Actually, no one would mistake Sok-Sok for a purebred. She is comically two-toned, with a completely black-velvet snoot and a completely blond body, as though a black dog had been held by the nose, Achilles'-heel style, and dipped into a vat of peroxide.)

Sok-Sok's best dog buddy is Tec, who also lives nearby. My theory is that Sok-Sok likes hanging around Tec for the benefit of physical comparison -- the way ugly girls always seem to hang around a hot one, if you get my drift. Tec appears to be a cross between a hyena and a wildebeest.

Sok-Sok and Tec are personable dogs, and everyone loves them. So it became a neighbourhood crisis when word spread that Sok-Sok was missing. She had been in Tec's house on a sort of food stealing mission; unexpectedly, someone opened the front door, and Sok-Sok pondered her options.

Option One: Remain in the house and in the custody of people who love you and provide you a comfortable, stimulating life, nourished in body and mind by ample food and exciting adventures.

Option Two: Bolt for the street and run like a lunatic, becoming a homeless cur in boiling temperatures in an inhospitable city where you will die of exposure and/or starvation in agony, or, if you are lucky, get squashed by a car into a pile of doggy based goo.

Sok-Sok was gone in an instant, of course.

I am not making fun of Sok-Sok's brain. Sok-Sok has a fine brain, for a dog. She is, for example, vastly more intelligent than any dog I have ever owned. But then again, I have always had cats.

Once it became clear that Sok-Sok was good and lost, Chea and his wife, Peakt, leapt into action. Peakt is a take-charge type -- a practical woman, a Khmer woman, rational, prudent, chief-financial-officer, executive-boss type. Peakt telephoned a psychic magic woman in Prey Veng province.

(Have you ever lost a dog? I did not think so. Let us cut Peakt some slack here. )

The psychic -- a renowned expert in "interspecies telepathy," according to many members of her family -- offered many observations, for a fee of 60,000r. None of them were right.

At this point, Peakt knew she had to take some additional, even more serious action. So she called another magic woman

(Does anyone happen to have any extra slack? My inventory seems to be running short.)

Thus, Peakt and Chea learned many more vital facts about where Sok-Sok might be, all of which, for some reason, proved wrong. By this time, more than a week of rainy weather had passed. Posters had been hung on the nearby tree and a small battalion of Concerned fellow stall owners combed the area. Nothing.

Deep in their hearts, Chea and Peakt understood how bleak things looked. They sensed what they had to do. Sometimes you have to Just Let Go.

So they decided to let go of an additional 20,000r. They called in a pet detective. Well actually it was the local guy who comes round to remove poisonous snakes found in poor peoples houses but lets not get fussy here.

Pith Bunna, professional animal (man)handler and canine detective, hopped on his moped and headed over to BKK.

Bunna worked tirelessly, but it made no difference. Two weeks to the day after Sok-Sok disappeared, a Good Samaritan phoned Peakt to say he'd spotted a dog matching Sok-Sok's description on the street corner opposite from when the Drinks Stall was. Chea and Peakt raced over the road calling Sok-Sok's name, until they came to a wooden shack from which Sok-Sok emerged, skinny but fine.

Sok-Sok approached them in that slap-happy, semi apologetic dog-who-has-done-something-wrong manner, where the tail is wagging but the dog appears to be simultaneously attempting to wipe the ground with its butt. Sok-Sok seemed to be saying,

"Hi. whattookyousolongI'msorryIloveyoudoyouhaveanyfood?" only in Khmer of course.

The next day, I brought Sok-Sok a welcome-back present of three dog biscuits and a dried pig ear, tied up with a ribbon and bow. She ate the bow, too.