The Foreign Service Journal, June 2016

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JUNE 2016 43 Menagerie Lions and Monkeys, Oh My! Our third pet was a Lhasa Apso named Sengtru (Little Lion), which we bought in Kathmandu and brought with us to Bangui, my next posting. Her insistent bark alerted us to the arrival of guests and unwanted strangers. Unfortunately, she was run over in Washington, D.C., when she escaped from the house during a dramatic and powerful thunderstorm, which had terrified the little animal. She is buried in an unmarked grave in our backyard. Colleagues also had pets. For instance, my DCM in Kuwait had a pet monkey named Anastasia. She was a regular feature at the American community pet show, held in the embassy compound each year. Like all monkeys, Anastasia had a certain manual dexterity, and at an afternoon barbecue which the DCM hosted, her talents were put to the test. The DCM had come up with a scheme to organize a banana-eating contest between Anastasia and the Marine security guards. Two of them agreed to take part. They and Anastasia sat on the wall of the DCM’s garden, where each was given an unpeeled banana to eat. Needless to say, Anastasia won hands-down. In Kuwait the embassy compound, which had been bombed only a few months before our arrival, was bedeviled by feral cats that lived under damaged, bombed-out buildings. The best-known of these was a scrawny white cat whom the Marines had found badly injured and nursed back to health. Christened Safira (Madam Ambassador), she became their mascot and had the run of the compound. Safira proved quite popular with local male cats, as well, so we soon decided to curtail her reproductive capabilities. The only catch was that in Kuwait, neutering animals was against Islamic law and illegal. However, under the protection of ambassadorial authority and diplomatic immunity, we decided to sneak an Egyptian veterinarian into the residence one Sunday to perform the necessary operation. The cat was duly captured, and the vet performed the procedure on our kitchen table, to the horror and amazement of the servants. Safira went on to live a sheltered, if infertile, life, for the remainder of our tour. Why Do Greyhounds Lose? Animals first entered my Foreign Service consciousness not as pets, but as visa applicants. As a new consular officer in Sydney, I was approached by two men for visas for their greyhounds. (Technically, of course, the visas were for the men, as they were planning to accompany their dogs to San Diego to race at the local track.) I knew little about greyhounds or the challenges of their life, even after spending an evening at the Sydney dog track. So the two applicants explained the system. These dogs were not expected to win, but to lose. The problem is that a fast grey- hound will always win and hence return very little money on a bet. The challenge was to make the greyhound lose repeatedly, so that future odds would increase. One crude method, which my applicants thankfully dis- dained, was to put some astringent substance on the trainer’s hand, with the aim of getting some of it into the eye of the dog as it was being put in the starting box. The dog would be tem- The DCM had come up with a scheme to organize a banana- eating contest between his pet monkey, Anastasia, and the Marine security guards.