Knowing neighbours could save lives

Eketahuna man Michael Blundell lay dead for two weeks and his dog Princess, pictured with Wairarapa SPCA manager Lloyd Warren, stayed with him.

OUR Eketahuna story on the dog staying with his dead owner for two weeks is obviously poignant in the idea of the loyal and faithful companion remaining steadfast to his owner.

There are several realities, the first of which is: what else is a dog to do?

Those who are dog owners will attest to a dog's need to feel secure. Plenty of owners will be familiar with their dogs, on being transported to an unknown environment, will sometimes retreat back to the car because they know that whatever happens, the owner will come back to it.

Princess, now renamed Petal, clearly knew that whatever the hell was going on, her best chance was to stick to the territory she knew, and hope that either her owner would get up, or something would happen and sort things out for her.

But the other reality is the idea of dying alone and undiscovered. In the movie Bridget Jones's Diary, Bridget angsts about dying alone and being half-eaten by Alsatians. Admittedly that was my first thought with regards to Princess, when wondering how the dog survived. I would defy anyone not to have thought it. It turns out the resourceful dog caught ducks. And this isn't on the order of Wellington man Michael Clarke, who died in his council flat and was undiscovered for a year. The Wellington City Council got heaped with a ton of flack about that, and I do think that council has some issues with how it deals with the housing of some of the more vulnerable members of their community. But I also believe those in those flats should have networked better, and the same could apply to Eketahuna as well.

I would argue your neighbours are your greatest security, and perhaps we are not as good as we should be in developing relationships with those next door. That familiarity, that establishment of patterns, of normality, allows neighbours to perceive when something doesn't feel right. Perhaps there are those in the Eketahuna community who, on reading our story, may resolve to start developing networks around some of their older members - especially as that particular demographic is growing world-wide. But, of course, setting up a network does struggle to take extremes into account. If you choose to be reclusive, there's probably only so much a community can do.