The Hair of the Dog

One of the requirements, or strong suggestions from the CDC, is to have a series of rabies vaccinations prior to visiting Sri Lanka.  I overheard one lady wondering why she needed the vaccine.  She said that she was not planning on handling any wild animals.  After being there for only a couple of days, the answer became very clear to me.  It is not the handling of the wild animals that is the problem.  It is the presence of twenty million wild dogs.  They are everywhere.  They lay in the streets at night, and wander about all day.  One of the popular reasons to visit the Emergency Room is a dog bite.  The females are almost always either pregnant or nursing.  They have no owners, and are truly homeless, unless you call the streets their homes.

The dogs in Mullaitivu, as elsewhere, are missing much of their hair.  They appear to be in a constant state of mange.  Apparently the fleas and other biting things cause them to scratch so hard that they scratch their hair out.  And there are fights.  They always seems to be in the middle of the night, and sound like they are next door.  I'm never sure quite what to do, so I just lie there and listen, hoping for an early end.