Breathe like a Bali Dog

It’s very easy to get caught up in negativity, there’s certainly enough of it going on globally to grind down even those with the most positive of outlooks.  Like a Bali dog caught in a net, submission to the negative aspects of local canine life on Bali is also inevitable.  Dogs are still being eaten, still being dumped, poisonings still occur, a very good friend had five die by deliberate poisoning recently and foreign breed dogs are still swamping the Island. 

To make matters even more precarious, Gunung Agung decided to throttle up activity.  The very real and very present threat has forced thousands of Bali people who reside in danger zones around the largest most sacred active volcano on Bali to flee their homes and leave their primarily local dogs behind.  They did not abandon their homes and animals and it can only be hoped that Bali people and their Island dogs can be reunited soon and continue their lives under on and around Agung. 

Yet as is the way on Bali, each dark has a corresponding light and a looming volcanic eruption has certainly brought out positive aspects of the Bali people Bali dog ancient and enduring relationship.  There are certainly enough reported numbers of dogs who live with families on the slopes of Agung to conclude that their symbiosis is certainly very well and intact.

​Bali has a reputation involving flow and balance.  All things happen for reasons seen and unseen.  Dogs and people make up part of a whole energy that pervades what is considered to be one of the most spiritual Island locations on planet Earth.  

Bali people present a calm outward persona, even when faced with crises that would flatten most other Nationalities. Foreigners are referred to as emotional, given their propensity to exhibit openly loud physical outbursts in times of similar stress.  Bali dogs, for those who have lived with them, also project a canine version of calmness.  How could they not, they are of Bali, it’s in their DNA.  Foreign dogs also exhibit unfamiliar behaviours, making them very unpredictable. There will of course be a great many who say that Bali dogs are aggressive unsocialized ill-mannered beasts. 

One of the reasons the Rabies virus was so terrifying for Bali people, apart from the very real threat of a very horrific death, was the obvious change in their dog’s behaviour, behaviour changes that were never seen in a thousand year relationship that relied on stability reliability security and surety.

So, with reflection and mindfulness, this website was originally created to simply celebrate the unique Bali Dog and their equally unique relationship with Bali People.  Many things have changed, more than most people could have ever imagined.  But the relationship between dog and people has endured even in the face of all the unimaginable stuff. 

Good things are still happening and against all odds Bali dogs are still there, still doing what they have always done.  They really do rock in the canine world.

​P.S.  Breathe like a Bali Dog.