Cats, dogs, and five weeks of a nearby war

“What if it had been a baby inside that cage, mama?” I was calmly asked after we met Bruno, the Doodle Dog, at a local veterinary clinic that made global headlines last week.
It was a loaded question from someone hoping to adopt an adorable, messy fur-faced labradoodle.
The pup was being cared for by Egyptian veterinarians in Oman who were recently interviewed by a local newspaper and regional Al Jazeera.
They spoke about expatriates who, nervous over recent regional tensions, left some GCC countries via Oman and, due to ‘travel restrictions,’ had to abandon family: their pets. (As I write this at a coffeeshop in MQ, European tourists in shorts and T-shirts, standing out from the local crowd, tell the friendly Omani barista they have just arrived in Muscat.)
‘Pet owners flee the war in the Middle East: hundreds of pets are left behind in Oman’, read the lost-in-translation headlines in Belgian and Dutch media, which sensationalised the expat-pet story using the same visuals of this local VET clinic. Partly triggered by a love for animals in need, we decided to go on a fact-checking journey.
As we drove out of downtown Muscat to visit the now world-famous, locally unknown pet place, the radio was tuned to the BBC, playing a segment with the brother of Narges Mohammadi, the Iranian activist awarded the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize for her human rights work.
Based in Norway, he spoke about Narges’ deteriorating health that had worsened under the stress of the foreign airstrikes that began five weeks ago.
When asked what his famous sister might think about Iran’s future leadership, he said that “she is not a politician” and that “the foreign policy of certain (Western and Western-aligned) countries has not been guided (by genuine concern) for human rights”.
Once we reached the VET clinic tucked away on a narrow side street in Al Seeb, none of the cats or dogs as seen on the news were in sight.
Distracted by the bright, flickering fluorescent lights while Egyptian children melodically recited the Holy Quran on a television in the background, we grabbed some overpriced treats from the jumbled shelves for our stray cats.
We asked the cashier, who only spoke Egyptian Arabic, if there were any pets up for adoption and a young VET was summoned to escort us to a backroom.
For a moment, it felt like walking into a seemingly mundane shop, only to find a hidden room where something forbidden could be happening. Indeed, I watched 'Goodfellas' too many times and my little partner was influenced by the series 'Stranger Things'.
But all we encountered were just cages with mostly cats recovering from surgery, while around five were waiting to be adopted. A cute Pomeranian featured in the story about abandoned expat pets turned out to be at the clinic for a grooming appointment the day they filmed the video.
Despite it being a day off from school, some important lessons were learned.
There was just one dog; Bruno. When we greeted him, the pup nearly tripped over himself trying to run circles of joy in his small and shabby shelter.
Already adopted by the vet clinic itself, Bruno had indeed been given up by his original owner, but he still lives in Salalah, as we are not at war here. Bruno was unwanted by his previous owner because he was born with a disability that cannot be fixed.
For all the tragic, heartbreaking stories we hear about children caught in nearby wars, Bruno’s story cut through as well, since, in a way, he too is just a kid and deserves better, too.