Few people have passed through Afghanistan without taking note of the country's dogs.
In Kabul's Streets, Dogs Rules the Night |
Few people have passed through Afghanistan without taking note of the country's dogs. Whether I recall the massive, heavy-headed mastiffs of the steppe or the fast, compact mutts of the mountains, or the flea-covered and often affectionate pups that took up residence at battlefield outposts, my own varied encounters with Afghanistan's dogs form a small body of memory that sometimes causes me to shudder and other times to smile. |
Afghanistan, like most anywhere, is a boundless subject. Its canines have a place in its canon. |
 | | A dog sleeping outside Aryub Cinema.Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times |
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Their story, of the packs of dogs that occupy the streets of Kabul city, the country's capital, and exert a menacing influence by night, is one more look at the disorders afflicting a nation sapped by decades of war. There is, of course, no shortage of metaphors for Afghanistan's dangers and dysfunctions, and there is no need to torture a new one from a brief reportage on the feral canines lurking about the capital. |
This story can be read in straightforward fashion, including this summary of yet another threat Afghans must measure and elude: "Certain streets and intersections almost demarcate thief and dog territory," Ms. Faizi and Mr. Gibbons-Neff wrote, "where groups of a dozen or so strays led by a pack leader that residents have come to easily recognize prowl between the shadows and the pitch black strips of road where people dare not walk." |
 | | Stray dogs by a pile of trash on a street in Kabul.Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times |
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In this telling, however, not everyone is ruled by fear. One official leaves open a theater as a dog shelter, where the packs gather and avoid being pelted by stones. And one pack of children coexists with a pack of dogs near a cemetery atop a hill where the children fly kites. I prefer to resist nostalgia and all things maudlin, but it's hard not to be buoyed for a moment by a glimpse of a street understanding that is both pragmatic and bright. |
No doubt there is no immediate or likely solution to Kabul's dog problems. You can safely bet that the city's feral packs — like distrust in government, like an excessive number of weapons — will endure indefinitely, or maybe even grow. |
Meanwhile, I'll hope you can appreciate a fresh dispatch and new view from a war old enough that its sorrows can feel far too familiar. |
C.J. Chivers is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine. He received a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 2017 and is the author of two books, including "The Fighters," which chronicled the experiences of six American combatants in Afghanistan and Iraq. |
| READ THE DISPATCH ON KABUL'S DOGS. | |
Afghan War Casualty Report: March 2021 |
 | | Security officials gathering in the aftermath of a bomb explosion in Kabul this week.Hedayatullah Amid/EPA, via Shutterstock |
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