« Previous | Main | Next »

A puppy in Baghdad

April 20, 2006 12:22 PM

Baghdad bureau chief and mutt godfather Clark Bentson blogs about a new arrival:

There isn’t a whole lot of opportunity for the ABC News staff in Baghdad to enjoy a break from the constant work load. Some one has to be near a phone or near the live location for the inevitable breaking news that happens here. So, when Fox News decided to hold a barbeque in the garden of their hotel and invited the other networks around – well, we had to go.

There was excellent food prepared by the various Fox News technicians. CNN, BBC, and a few other journalists came by and we all caught up. You can spend weeks here without seeing any of your colleagues so we all enjoyed it.

Towards the end of the party, the Fox News bureau chief says, “so do you want a puppy?”  Hmmm...

Now ABC News has a garden (famous from previous blogs). We eat outside and enjoy the warm nights but at every meal we are swarmed by cats (also famous from previous blogs). Our initial four kittens have grown and bred and those sweet little things have either been run out of the neighbourhood or they have turned into real whiny tomcats that constantly pester you as you are trying to enjoy your meal.

So, “do you want a puppy?” became a way to in my mind to keep the cats out of the garden and a way to give us a little extra security. But, I didn’t want be the one who made the decision to take a dog, after all I will be finishing my rotation soon. So I went to our security chief and I asked him what he thought.

“Yes.”

There was no hesitation.

He agreed the cat problem needed to be sorted, and since I wouldn’t let any of his team shoot the cats, this was going to be the solution. So off the security leader went to pick out the puppy.

There were only three to choose from because two had already died out of the litter of five. When I met up with our group, there was this dusty, scrawny mutt of a pup shaking in the Fox technician’s arms. No one from our group really wanted to touch this smelly little puppy, so I scooped him and carried him to the car. (I could see where this was going from the beginning.)

(More photos after the jump.)

We decided since it was a gift from our Fox colleagues, Fox would be the new puppy’s name. We brought Fox back, put him in a pen made from bamboo that was in our garden, and he immediately crawled into the corner and tried to bury his head in the grass.  He was not happy. He didn’t look well. He smelled.

We put a pillow down, a little canned tuna (no dog food in Iraq) and some water. “He’ll be all right,” we told ourselves.  That night I thought I heard some howling, but over the din of the generator and buzzing of helicopters I couldn’t be sure.

In the morning, Fox was gone. He had wiggled out of his pen, and made a run for it. We had a puppy for 12 hours.

But we knew we couldn’t leave it at that. Fox would never survive – he just wasn’t strong enough. So the word was put out in the neighbourhood, and a few hours later a security guard from a neighbouring compound said Fox had been spotted hiding under a pile of wreckage. The security team extracted him – only after the guard was bitten and had to go the hospital for rabies shots. Fox was reluctantly brought back to ABC NEWS for the good life he didn’t want to have.

We brought a vet to see him who made house calls. She has been here three times. Most Iraqis don’t like dogs, but we have one member of our staff who does and he washes Fox daily; three baths in three days.

The pup still is a little shell-shocked, but cute as hell. He doesn’t know what to think of people (and we think he may have been abused by the locals before Fox News adopted his family). He spends 22 hours a day under my desk, but won’t come near me. I feed him three times a day, pick him up to take him out to do his thing (yes there have been accidents); and yesterday he chewed through a computer internet cable when I wasn’t looking.

I have taken him to the garden for dinner, but he turned his back on all of us and stared at the wall. A few cats arched their backs and spat at him, but Fox was nonplussed by it all.  He gives the impression that he really isn’t enjoying “the good life” but I think he is. He is looking a little fatter than when we got him. He barks and howls when he hears the nearby guard dogs and if we can get near enough to him he loves having his chin scratched.

He is laying on his back now as I write this, having only moved for his bath today. We are taking each day in baby steps.

I am sure that soon the security team who wanted him will come and play with him too.

April 20, 2006 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (15)

User Comments

Posted by: Ed Blom | Apr 20, 2006 1:35:57 PM

Posted by: Melissa | Apr 20, 2006 2:32:48 PM

Posted by: Jocelyn | Apr 20, 2006 3:25:58 PM

Posted by: kitty | Apr 20, 2006 4:45:32 PM

Posted by: greg | Apr 20, 2006 4:53:51 PM

Posted by: joe | Apr 20, 2006 7:12:37 PM

Posted by: TK | Apr 20, 2006 9:52:58 PM

Posted by: Marcia | Apr 21, 2006 3:32:18 PM

Posted by: Liz | Apr 22, 2006 8:18:26 AM

Posted by: Michelle | Apr 24, 2006 8:15:09 PM

Posted by: Linda | Apr 24, 2006 9:23:51 PM

Posted by: Lou Ann | Apr 25, 2006 4:52:53 AM

Posted by: AJ | Apr 25, 2006 6:16:23 PM

Posted by: Betsy Markum | May 15, 2006 1:21:38 PM

Posted by: Ruth | May 23, 2006 6:18:51 PM

Post a comment

Name:

Email Address:

URL:

Remember personal info?

Comments: