Life is never dull in my little garden behind the temple. The current population of my household comprises three dogs, three parrots and me. A certain amount of alertness is necessary to ensure that I’m first on the scene if a parrot hits the floor within range of a much-too-interested canine. And the dogs themselves have issues; the relationship between Daisy and Kalypso has always been uneasy and even violent. Nocturnal dogfights under my bed were not unknown. A visit from Bali’s own Dog Whisperer changed my wild pack into attentive and obedient canines in a single day by establishing me as Mega Alpha Plus Top Dog. A year later all I have to do is click my tongue, point a finger and three dog bottoms hit the tile. Now I only have to worry about the dogs killing birds and reptiles instead of each other.
My rescued street dog Hamish can leap the two metre high garden wall like a deer. Although I constantly ask him to stay within the confines of the yard for his own safety, there is a much more exciting world outside the walls. He likes to visit the neighbours, check out the smells on our street and leave his mark a little higher on our front gate post than the dogs from the warung. But most of all he likes to visit the temple.
We live close to Ubud’s Pura Dalem Puri with (to a dog) its intriguing smells and the possibility of interesting snacks. During big ceremonies several hapless pigs are sacrificed in the temple kitchen near the river. Hamish disappears for lengthy periods and returns with a sated expression and a distended tummy. During these excursions he has been known to purloin whole pig skulls and somehow drag them home over the wall. The first time this happened, I was aghast to find the front path strewn with what looked like human teeth. I have to remember to warn houseguests about this, and also not to be alarmed if they see the dogs gnawing on what uncannily resembles fragments of a human jaw.
Lately Ibu, the female dog attached to the warung at the corner, has been in heat. The nights echo with the sound of madly barking dogs and ferocious dog fights, to which my own pack responds with enthusiastic howls from the confines of my bedroom. Every unaltered male dog on the street, and there are many, bears the scars of recent contests for Ibu’s affections. The other morning I left my house to find Ibu in the very act, firmly attached to a scabby mongrel directly in front of the elementary school gate. Another dog was trying to make it a threesome and yet another was politely waiting his turn. A huddle of small boys watched disapprovingly from the gate, flicking the devoted pair with water from time to time. “Goodness,” said a visiting friend. “You don’t see much of this in England.”
Then there are the birds. Rama the bald parrot prefers to be known as Big Bird. “Hi, Big Bird, I love you!” he frequently affirms. Since I don’t allow mirrors in his cage, he has no way of knowing that he is in fact a bald and unlovely bird; he thinks he’s an eagle. “Perfect Bird,” I sometimes hear him crooning to himself.
Big Bird has a new portable perch, cobbled together from pruned garden branches. It sits in the middle of the dining table on a strategically placed newspaper, and he likes to sit here and observe me tapping on the computer. The perch is hung about with toys and beads that last about a day under his busy beak. Big Bird is quickly bored when his playthings have been destroyed, and casts about for further entertainment. He likes papers and pens but has a special weakness for keyboards of all kinds.
On the afternoon I proudly brought my new laptop computer home and started to work on the outside table, Big Bird strolled over and pecked one of keys off completely. No one has ever been able to repair it. The other day I went inside to answer the phone and came back to find him sitting on his perch with my hand phone in his claw. He had removed the keypad cover and flung it aside, and all the phone lights were flashing. When I snatched it back, I saw that he had punched a three-line message onto the screen. (It looked like nonsense to me, but what do I know?) Luckily I was able to reassemble the phone and it still works, but now he is constantly trying to grab it from my hand. Presumably he is waiting for a call.
Chiko, another parrot, often sits on my shoulder while I write, grooming my hair and trying to remove my earring. This bird is absolutely gorgeous but has the personality of a potato. He spends hours in the same position staring at a fixed point in space, perhaps in meditation. When I offer him a peanut, it can take him a minute or two to process the information and actually accept it. But, like so many of us, he is motivated by sugar.
I was sipping tea one day when Chiko, perched on my shoulder, indicated interest. This was unusual, so I tilted the mug in his direction. He dove in for a sip and since then has insisted on sharing my tea every afternoon. Visitors consider this unhygienic, so I’ve given him his own cup. Although Chiko has not yet demonstrated much in the way of intellectual aptitude, he’s figured out that cups of tea often arrive on a tray along with milk and sugar. When the tea tray is placed on the table he now climbs down from the perch, marches resolutely across the table and dips his fluorescent orange beak into the silver sugar bowl. He is also very fond of arak.
On a recent visit to Canada I found my parent’s house almost uncannily quiet; the only animal was an elderly cat. It made me realize how extraordinary my ordinary days with my animals have become, and how rich.
’Dragons in the Bath’, a collection of Ibu Kat’s stories,
is now available in paperback from
* Kuta : The Bali Advertiser office
* Seminyak : Ganesha at Biku
* Ubud : Ganesha Books, KAFE, Threads of Life, Eve Body Treatment Centres
* Sanur : Dijon
