dogs club

Like most dog-owners in India, we dread Diwali.  Kiba is really scared of firecrackers, more than any of our dogs over the years. It's painful to see what he goes through.  And Kimaya has started getting a bit nervous too. Maybe she's influenced by him? We don't know. Unfortunately our usual getaway place, Nagaon, is actually much noisier than even Mumbai at this time. Hordes of urban barbarians rush there, throng the beach and turn it into a war zone.  So about a month ago, Kiran started searching online for relatively quiet, pet-friendly places to escape to. (I say 'relatively quiet' because it's difficult, or near impossible, to find absolutely quiet places in this country during this festival). When a friend told us about a dog-friendly resort in a place called Jawhar, we jumped at it.  So last week, on the loudest day of Diwali, off we went with the K Gang; their luggage (heavy); and our luggage (light). Jawhar is in the Sahyadri mountains, about 150 km no...

Deepa is back on the blog! After a few years! She's always been one of my favourite Indies, because she looks so like my Lalee. She's been living in Switzerland since 2009, with Nicole Poyyayil's parents on their farm. If you're new to this blog, you can follow her story through the links in this post. I met this beautiful dog in 2008 before she was taken to Switzerland. I visited Nicole's home in Navi Mumbai with my Lalee and Bandra. Deepa was the perfect hostess and seemed happy to have doggy guests over! Lalee was nervous and stayed in a corner, but we got a nice picture of Bandra and Deepa. Last year Nicole shifted to Switzerland, and before her own dogs  arrived from India, she had Deepa staying at her house for a week. 'It was when my parents went for a holiday,' she writes. 'It was very nice having Deepa with me but she was very excited when my papa came to pick her up. I realized that she loves me very much, but her home is with my parents. Even...

Meet Helo, gorgeous little INDog-mix from Delhi! (Don't Indies have the loveliest eyes in the canine world?) In August, at the age of three months, Helo was flown to his forever home in the US. To someone who had been waiting all her life for a puppy from India.  'All those years ago I had wanted to adopt a puppy...in every city that I lived in in India,' writes Mita. 'But to no avail, thanks in part to the fact that we were constantly on the move as my father was in the army. 'Finally this is like a dream come true.' 'I have surrounded myself with pictures and objects from my beloved home country. Yet nothing is more iconic than these beseeching eyes in this sharp and intelligent face.  'He takes me back to every street corner where one or several such little creatures eke out a living. 'At three months. Such a low-maintenance, spirited puppy.' 'Life has completely changed. It's ridiculous how much we love him and what a smart dog he is....

These are a few dogs Kiran Khalap photographed on a rushed three day visit to Cambodia in August.  If you haven't seen my earlier post on   Dogs of Cambodia , do have a look at it now.  It's from 2011. The pictures are village dogs clicked by Col. Gautam Das.  Kiran last visited Cambodia in 1998, with me, and he found Siem Reap greatly changed since then. We remember it as a rather sleepy little town. It's a busy city now. There are more free-ranging dogs now, and more mixed ones. On this trip he also visited a site about 70 km away from Siem Reap, up a hill. These beautiful aboriginal looking dogs were up there. The same dog from the top photo And these are the Siem Reap dogs, some attached to eateries.   Two have very heavy black shading, including the cute puppy. One has completely dropped ears. Kiran saw a few short-legged dogs too, the kind we remembered from our last trip. It would be fascinating to travel in the region and discover more about the village ...

Elegant graceful Honey lives with Grumps, Vidya and Samik in Pune.  She appeared once in this blog last year, but we've never shared the full story of her rescue and adoption.  Here it is at last, from Vidya: They say some things are destined to happen. I strongly believed that on that particular day, when my husband and I decided to take a walk to the nearest supermarket instead of taking the car to bring groceries home. What was supposed to be another lazy sunday morning turned out to be quite something else for us. And yes, this is a long long story. Of hope, faith, belief, gratitude, trust and every other virtue any animal can teach us humans. As we walked closer to the supermarket, we heard a dog howl. It was in pain and could barely roll over. It lay near the fence near the pavement (which was thankfully wide), right next to the road. My husband and I couldn't bear to listen to this.  It was as if this poor dog was shouting and crying out to each and every passerby...

Time to highlight one of the 'not-INDog' village breeds I mentioned in my June post, INDogs and Not-INDogs: Village dogs of India.    I have some lovely pictures to share of the Dhangari Kuttra , sheepdog of Maharashtra, thanks to a few nice people in the doggy network! A bit of background: The Dhangar community are nomadic shepherds of this region, and kuttra of course means 'dog' in marathi. Though the name Dhangari Kuttra is well known in Maharashtra, no-one seems to have consistently documented the breed or tried to preserve it in any way since W V Soman included it in his book 'The Indian Dog' (Popular Prakashan, 1963). That's the only book on Indian dog breeds till now, by the way. Major Soman's description mentions a moderate coat, tufted tail turned over the back, weight about 25 to 30 pounds (that's 11-13.6 kilos), height of males about 20 inches, strong legs, mixed colours; '...occasionally met with tan mixture but very seldom...body...