English Version | It's love, animal!

Don't think I have enough genius to come up with the above sentence. It's inspired by something remotely similar, more in meaning than in form, to a writing by the great Manuel António Pina, who would have turned 80 on November 18th. It's in the book Nenhuma Palavra e Nenhuma Lembrança (1999), "chapter" In Prose Probably, in a poem (in prose, there it is), entitled Lembranças. He talks about having found himself, one day, looking at himself from the outside, in a foreign city. And of his mother (with, I venture to guess, some of the most endearing phrases ever). And the dog. His name was Coq (or Coque?). And he was old. One day he disappeared. It was hypothesized that he had left with the men who had been whitewashing the house for several days, during which time the youngest had made great friends with the animal, sharing the contents of his lunchbox with him. But a few days later, the news arrived... Coq had been hanged with a wire by a neighbor. Because he was robbing his hutch at night. The following week, the whitewashers returned to collect their money. The youngest asked about the dog. "They hanged him," replied little Pina. Who, at the end of the day, learned that the whitewasher had entered his neighbor's house and, taking a sack, had killed him without uttering a word. Can anyone get inside the mind of someone who kills to avenge an animal? Apart from me? Is killing for love even love? Is a crime of passion still a crime of passion? Or is it just a headline in the newspaper? When I was no more than a dozen years old, because I remember the marbles ("gills"), the spinning top that I never mastered, and the corduroy pants with knee pads, our dog (Terry) also disappeared. Those were the most suffocating days I can remember until I saw my first "real" girlfriend kiss another guy on the dance floor of the Visage disco, on that fateful Sunday matinee, just because he was "avant-garde" and I was an "surfer" who helped my parents in the café - my mother with her arms burnt from frying cuttlefish, my father getting older by the day, me with no time to go to that mythical disco in Caparicana. We met him many days later, on the path he used to return home from his misadventures with "outgoing" bitches in the neighborhood and beyond, like Don Juan from Cereeira, Sobreda da Caparica (he would, however, be surpassed many years later by Óscar Tobias JB Adolfo Dias, a muscular and highly intelligent mutt, a circus dog capable of doing any "trick" he was taught, with a slight squint that gave him a charming look, Who, at the end of the day, learned that the whitewasher had entered his neighbor's house and, taking a sack, had killed him without uttering a word. Can anyone get inside the mind of someone who kills to avenge an animal? Apart from me? Is killing for love even love? Is a crime of passion still a crime of passion? Or is it just a headline in the newspaper? When I was no more than a dozen years old, because I remember the marbles ("gills"), the spinning top that I never mastered, and the corduroy pants with knee pads, our dog (Terry) also disappeared. Those were the most suffocating days I can remember until I saw my first "real" girlfriend kiss another guy on the dance floor of the Visage disco, on that fateful Sunday matinee, just because he was "avant-garde" and I was an "surfer" who helped my parents in the café - my mother with her arms burnt from frying cuttlefish, my father getting older by the day, me with no time to go to that mythical disco in Caparicana. We met him many days later, on the path he used to return home from his misadventures with "outgoing" bitches in the neighborhood and beyond, like Don Juan from Cereeira, Sobreda da Caparica (he would, however, be surpassed many years later by Óscar Tobias JB Adolfo Dias, a muscular and highly intelligent mutt, a circus dog capable of doing any "trick" he was taught, with a slight squint that gave him a charming look, Today, such occurrences would be criminalized. Because, in this area, Portugal has progressed to the point where they have become the exception, condemned by all of us even before they reach the courtroom. But that's precisely why, in the days when animal abuse was the talk of the town, exceptions were an immeasurable love.

Cork oaks, beige cows, herds, wine, sausages, migas, and, more modernly, infinity pools over the cork oak forest surrounded by sun loungers or lounge beds with mosquito nets fluttering about - this is the image most people have of the Alentejo. Mine is the tavern, next to the door, where there is a kind of step "carved" into the wall itself, which serves as a bench. There are always half a dozen old men sitting on it, each with their "canito" at their feet. The canito Alentejano is an institution. Rafeiro, small, stocky, short-legged, strolls around the village during the day or sits on the doorsteps. But only when his owners aren't out. Then he's an inseparable companion. On his way to the "panito" early in the morning, to the grocery store, to the tavern for a branquinho before lunch. It's picked up at scalding time in the summer and on cold, rainy winter days and, of course, every night around the time of the Price is Right. At dinner, he stands next to the brazier, eats a side of pork rind or rib-eye cartilage by hand, and then retires to his "bed". The owner is his heroine, and he stares at her with half-closed eyes, charm stamped on his muzzle, until she addresses him with a phrase, then it's ears back, a swipe of the tongue across the cheeks, and love is stamped on that wagging tail. Less bucolic, but no less remarkable, is the city dog. The one who is used to all the comforts, who is fed the food of his choice, who climbs onto the sofa, who is walked around the urban gardens at certain times but who, in the overwhelming majority of cases, spends the day alone while his owners are at work (bless the pandemic, which has given them everything they want). And, in this case, there is something that determines everything that is intended to be explicit in this text. There is a moment when we hold our child in our arms for the first time. There is the memory of our mother kissing us on the forehead to check if we had a fever. In my case, there's the hug from my father after months away. But every day, there's all the commotion that follows the act of putting the key in the lock and entering the house. It's not just a "welcome." It's not just glee. It's not just disbelief. It's the most emotional, festive, and sincere display of pure love. Unconditional, giving, and absolute. We humans want a lot during our lives. Dogs only want their owners to be no more than a meter away, no more than an hour away, no more than a lifetime away. And theirs is so short.

We're bald (I can't complain about that) from reading about the differences between cats and dogs. Perhaps it's time to distinguish between the owners of cats and dogs. And maybe start with the fact that cats don't have owners. At most, it's the pussycat who rules over the human who walks around the house that is his (what an effrontery), who gives him that pâté that he loves (and woe betide him if he changes brands), who cleans his latrine and who pets him when he's turned around (otherwise it's nails for what I want) and never on his belly. On the other hand, the dog's owner is his idol. You can count on the fingers of one hand who has ever gotten half the love your canine has for you from another human. This poses a sociological problem. If you don't find love, you get a dog. It's just as true that if you can't even "get it on" with that girl who walks her French bulldog every day at the same time as you take your Dalmatian for a walk, which could result in an intense, long-lasting love relationship with no major mishaps apart from the socks scattered around the house and the open toilet seat, You only have to get home and call your pet to bed to see love happening. In this respect, cat owners are more sincere in their love. Just as a dog loves us for who we are, so cat owners, with their mangled arms and legs, threadbare sofas, and broken knick-knacks, love their pet for who it is: sometimes a sweetheart, sometimes a monster. But it's love, so what? I answer: have animals! Only those who have this privilege know that it's much more than just that. They may not dine with us at the table (neither does a teenage son), they may not talk (how many times do we beg for silence?), they may not understand exactly when we complain about work, but an animal is guaranteed to make us a better human being. Those who have animals don't distinguish them from the rest of the family, even if they don't know it. There's a frontier that's falling away, like the Schengen area in the 1990s, when we were able to discover another world from behind the wheel and across Europe. We talk to our pets like we talk to our children, just not about their grades at school. And that only seems ridiculous to those who don't have them. We indulge them, we look after them in sickness and in health, in wealth and in poverty. And what do we get in return? Everything!

On the subject of love for animals, I would like to draw your attention to what I consider to be an exception (which will include exceptions within itself) and which is not even in the breeders. The pursuit of profit at the expense of animals is not called for here, at least with respect. But it exists for a reason: people buy them. Would we buy a friend to keep at home? A child, a mother? Giving money to an animal is not love. Giving hundreds of euros because it's a certain breed is pure ostentation. A dog is not a Porsche Cayenne. And animal shelters are full of caged animals begging for attention. I've "owned" six dogs in my lifetime. All mutts. We gave them away. It's one thing to "raise" a canine from birth, there's fascination, and there's love beyond chewed shoes and urine in the house. But my last dog was taken in from the streets when he was six years old, according to the vet. In this case, what you might call pure magic happened. From being thin, fearful, and sad-eyed, Caleb evolved into a gentle giant. All gratitude to him, call me, what I never was, an "educator" of a dog who has relearned not to fear humans, to play, and to communicate. Huge, black, and scary-looking, he had such a big soul that, in the presence of people who fear dogs (yes, there are such people), he would rest his head on their legs when they were sitting or, if they were standing, he would stand a meter away and raise his paw, as if declaring, as he had seen me declare to him so many times: "Fear nothing, my little one." This is not what we call "animal behavior." This is something else. In my extremely biased opinion, dogs have been a regular presence in our societies for so long that, let's face it, they know us better and know how to deal with us much better than so many (and more and more) humans. Let's call the humanity that we see slipping through our fingers daily dogkind. It would make this world a better place.

"I have a blackbird," Deolinda used to sing. Well, I had a blackbird, Ana Bacalhau... I had a Gull (Garrulus glandarius) called Valdemar. He fell out of the nest attacked by a cat (dear cat owners, please lock up your kittens because they represent a great danger to birdlife) and I had no choice but to bring him home, feed him, teach him to fly, hold him on my shoulder all day at work (we were in the middle of a pandemic) and take naps with him lying on my chest. Until, a few months later, when he was completely independent (and instead of releasing him, I wanted to make sure he was ready for it), I delivered him to the Monsanto Bird Recovery Center. A week later, I received an email telling me that Valdemar had not survived. Survived what? Is a cage full of other highly territorial specimens? The lack of food and water that he could already find on his own? I didn't ask. The whining here at home (which returns every time the animal is mentioned) was heavy enough. In the meantime, I think I went up a few notches on the Unusual Pets scale when, a few months ago, and also fell out of the nest into the middle of the road, soaking wet, with very few feathers and "sown on a stormy day", I brought in the one who is now a "grown man", lives here at home and, despite the windows being open all day (in the name of all the freedom he deserves to be happy), won't come out. He's Dr. Fernando (Fanã to his friends) and he's a pigeon. Yes, a pigeon. You can "blergh" all you want, you can call him "a rat with wings", but the facts are that Dr. Fernando answers to his name, he coos when I come, he likes sunflower seeds, crumbled cornbread, earflaps, and playing hide-and-seek. Because, I assure you, this "Oh, I'm more of a dog person" or "Oh, I'm more of a cat person because they have personality" thing doesn't hold water with me. You either like animals or you're watching the world pass you by.

*Originally translated from the Love & Hope Issue, published December 2023. Full credits and stories in the print issue.