By Imlisanen Jamir
In the theater of protest, you expect the usual players—the angry crowds, the masked demonstrators, the riot police in formation. But in certain parts of the world, there’s another figure in the mix, one that has no political party, no ideology, and no stake in the fight beyond some instinctive sense of belonging. The riot dog.
These are strays, street dogs, nobodies by any official measure. Yet, when the barricades go up and the slogans fill the air, they are there—barking at the riot police, running alongside protesters, dodging tear gas as if they know exactly what’s happening. In Greece, during the anti-austerity protests of the 2010s, a dog named Loukanikos became a symbol of defiance, fearlessly standing his ground against baton charges. In Chile, Negro Matapacos, a black street dog, became famous for siding with student protesters, always on the frontlines, always snarling at the authorities.
They were never trained for this. No one told them to take a side. They simply did.
And that’s why they became legends. Because in a world where everything feels rigged, where institutions crumble, and leaders turn deaf, the riot dog is something pure—a creature that, without knowing words or laws, still understands which side is the one being crushed.
It’s easy to think of these stories as something that happens elsewhere. A viral curiosity, a piece of folklore from distant struggles. But if you live in a place where protests are frequent, where the state’s incompetence and failures drive people into the streets, you’ve probably seen something like this too. The dogs that linger at demonstrations, that weave through the legs of crowds, that seem to recognize the difference between a mob and a movement.
It’s not magic. It’s not politics. It’s something simpler: they stay where the people are. The ones shouting not for power, but for justice, for dignity, for something better than what they’ve been given.
And that’s the strange thing about riot dogs—they don’t belong to anyone, but they belong to the fight. Their loyalty isn’t to a government or a flag, but to the people who march, who demand, who refuse to be silenced.
Loukanikos grew old and died in quiet retirement, his body worn down by years of inhaling tear gas. Negro Matapacos became an icon, his image spray-painted on city walls long after he was gone. And here, though we may not have a dog with a name etched into history, we know what it means when one lingers too long in a crowd, watching, waiting.
Because sometimes, even the strays know who’s on the wrong side of history.
Comments can be sent to imlisanenjamir@gmail.com
