An Irishman's Diary

YOU don’t have to be an economist visiting crisis-gripped Athens for the “D-word” to loom large. The first day we were there, even my 12-year-old daughter raised the question. “What is it with all the dogs?” she asked.

It’s true: they’re everywhere you look in the city. Dog owners, by contrast, seem to be scarce. No doubt some of the mutts roaming the footpaths are free-range pets. Others probably used to be pets. But many seem to be second- or third- or fourth-generation street dogs, whose necks have never known a leash.

In Nicosia last year, I was struck by the number of cats patrolling the streets and alleys, on both sides of the Green Line. They appeared to transcend the whole Greek-Turkish/ Christian-Muslim divide, travelling easily between the two parts of the city, without visas. But if Nicosia is a cat-held town, Athens falls firmly on the other side of the great canine-feline clash of civilisations.

There are a few cats lurking here and there in the restaurant-rich areas of Plaka and Monasteriki. There are many more up around the Acropolis, where some neighbourhoods even have a majority cat population. Downtown belongs to the dogs, however.

What cats we noticed there were all thin. Whereas even the most obviously stray dogs look well fed.

Although rabies has long been eradicated in Greece, the combination of dogs and hot weather still evokes images of frothing mouths and bared fangs. Instinctively, we warned the kids against petting these animals. But in retrospect, there wasn’t much need. Overwhelmed by mid-summer heat, the dogs didn’t seem to have enough energy to bite anything.

They spent their days prostrate, flat on their sides on footpaths or in squares, or on the cool marble slabs with which Athens is so well supplied. The biggest danger was that you might walk on one, mistaking it for a mat, and provoke an angry reaction.

It’s always tempting in an ancient city to wonder if stray animals are more than they appear. In the lovely old Protestant cemetery in Rome, for example, those resident cats that rub their backs along your ankles as you’re reading the inscriptions could easily – if you were impressionable – be the ghosts of Keats and Shelley and the cemetery’s other long-lease tenants.

Similarly, after a glass or two of ouzo, you might persuade yourself that the Athenian street mongrels are latter-day disciples of Diogenes, who took to living like a dog (hence the name given to him and his followers, “cynics”), and who also liked to walk through the market-place shining a lamp so that, when anybody asked what he was searching for, he could say “an honest man”.

But alas, there is almost certainly a more prosaic explanation for the Athens dog surplus. It is, as economists might say, a systemic problem. And in its own way, it demonstrates the difficulties of achieving reform.

As in many once-agricultural countries, pet ownership is a relatively modern thing in Greece, where animals used to have to work for their living. The Lassie TV series of the 1960s was a big influence, I gather. But inevitably, many recreational dog owners couldn’t cope with the responsibilities. And as elsewhere, abandoned pets used to be dealt with by municipal dog catchers.

That, according to the Greek-American and long-time Athens resident Tom Mazarikis was until, some years ago, an animal rights group uncovered gross mistreatment of dogs in a certain pound and filmed the results. The exposé led to the arrest of the local mayor, who was ultimately responsible. And the effects, as Mazarikis writes on his website, were far-reaching: “That mayor was charged with the crime of ‘maltreatment of animals’ which is a very serious offence in Greek law. He was convicted and sentenced to several months in prison along with a stiff monetary fine. As a result, almost every municipality in Greece dissolved their dog pounds and fired their dog catchers.” Unrestrained by the long arm of the warden, strays went forth and multiplied, with results that are still evident. By 2003, the D-word loomed large enough in Athens to be a potential embarrassment during the following year’s

Olympics. Indeed, animal rights people claimed a suspiciously high number of dog poisoning incidents during that year.

But in late 2003, the city announced a humane solution, whereby 10,000 strays would be sterilised and tagged, before being released again and allowed to live out their lives in dignity. That’s why many of the strays, like the one pictured above, have collars; although civic-minded dog lovers have also taken to “fostering” strays, caring for their basic needs and attaching a name and contact number in case of emergencies.

The sterilisation drive was, as one observer calls it, a “15-year plan” to eradicate the problem. By which measure, the dog surplus should be about half-way to zero now. And maybe it is. An ex-pat I spoke to – the Ballinasloe-born journalist Damian Mac Con Uladh – says there are far fewer street dogs than there used be.

Against which, cynics of the post-Diogenes variety would suggest that there have been a few loopholes in the canine family-planning policy. In any case, achieving a zero dog surplus by 2018 was always ambitious. I’m no canine economist, but based on casual observation last week, I fear it’s still too early to rule out a default.