My first dog was Moti. I had him when I must have been about 5 or 6. He died of rabies after a brief stay with us. It is over 4 decades now, but I remember him quite distinctly.
Can't really say how I got him, but suddenly we had this pup, almost a year old, and I don't recall seeing him smaller than about the height of a regular one year old mongrel. He was sleek and youthful and clean.
I remember bonding with him while looking at details - the tiny granular composition of his pinkish nose, the many hued circles which made his auburn pupils, his paws and coat and the sinews of his thigh muscles as he ran or as he rose and the different ways in which he wagged his white tipped tail. And his gaze, the way he looked at me, gave me the impression that he carried in him some deep deep sadness. Such was Moti, a sad looking handsome dog, but he died young.
One day he returned with a frothy mouth; the frothiness increased and the constant drool made my father put him on a leash, and tie him a little away from our house.
One morning Moti lay there motionless and stiff, under the banyan where he was tied. He had died. I did not know the word vet then, nor apparently my father. The year was around 1968.
Moti's loss made me long for a dog, I remember. A few months later a cousin came to visit us, bringing with him a small dog, white with brown patches. He did not remain with us for long though because he shat all over the place and my mother complained and my father decided that dog must go. This one did not get a name. He was dispatched off anonymous!
Much later I got home a bitch whom I named Sheppy. She was full brown with a bushy tail and a narrow muzzle and so I believed that she was a fox terrier. She was not, although there was in her some bushy tailed breed-blood.
When Sheppy was with us, father was no more and I was a teenager. I had acne and I was getting meaner! I was a bully and I fought with guys at school. At home I acted tough with Sheppy. She took my threats and beatings until she could take it no more. One day when I came home from school Sheppy was not at home. My mother thought aloud and said that she would return by night fall, but Sheppy did not come back.When I think of those painful years of growing up I feel guilty that I used to direct my frustrations at Sheppy. She was a good dog.
Before Sheppy we were living in Margao where a white bitch from the colony would come frequently to our house. We did not 'own' her but eventually she was our dog when she made the corner near our veranda her spot. My father was there then and he loved her and called her 'Dhavalu', meaning the white one.
Then I began growing up and had no time for dog bitches.
After all those years, now we have Lili and we are all happy that we got her.
Mir had four guinea-pigs but he wanted a dog. Paula has allergies d from dog dander, so we were looking to see if it was possible to get a Hypoallergenic dog in South India. Hypoallergenic breeds are foreign breeds. Most of these breeds have thick fur, "double coat" is the term I believe. They are imported. Some breeders have started breeding them here but a number of these dog breeds have problems adapting to hot humid climate of south India. Mr. Iyer, the chief of the Kennel club of Madras said that no such breed was registered @KCI. The vet he made me contact seemed ignorant of the term Hypoallergenic.
I was hoping to bring home a hound - an Indigenous breed like the Rampur hound or Mud-hole or Rajapalayam hound. These dogs are very intelligent and faithful. They are outdoor dogs although I imagine that in cities people would have them inside. But no hound mentioned above is hypoallergenic. More than the dog smell, I thought Paula's nagging sneezes would drive me to drink so I searched the net for Hypoallergenic breed. From amongst the number of backyard breeders I contacted there was one who said that he had poodle. Poodles are hypoallergenic. Paula said that she had a standard poodle when she was small and she was OK with a poodle. Most of all, the price factor was agreeable. Some of these dogs are very expensive for an Indian pocket.
I asked the breeder to send me pics of Lili and her brother. He did. We saw them and we wanted one of the two, yet there was the dubious question of the one on one thing about the hypoallergenic whatever! I mean Paula would have to spend a few half hours to verify that the pup we wanted did not make her sneeze of go red all over, so we decided to visit the Kennel in Chennai.
Lili came home on December the 28th afternoon and marked her 'nest' by dropping two hard black turds revealing that she was in good health albeit fed mostly on dry pallets. The very next day cyclone 'Thane' hit Auroville, but that is not Lili's fault.
Her name - she obviously had no name because she did not respond to the kennel owner's calling her Jill (for our benefit, I think. I also think that she was beaten back in the Kennel if she refused to obey). Mir wanted to give her some names which I thought were either humdrum or not quite befitting her personality. Lili also was one of the names Mir had thought of. Paula and I too had a name or two but Mir wouldn't listen. We decided that we would write all the names-five names each and from the pool pick one up randomly and that would HAVE TO BE the name for the dog. Out of 15 names Mir picked Lili and that is how 'jill' (sic) became Lili.
Lili is black with soft black curly coat which Paula brushes everyday. Mir plays 'catching cook' (why cook? I wonder!) with Lili which she loves. Lili loves to jump and 'fetch' and bark at strangers and cowers at the sudden gush of wind and the rustle of leaves, and she looks at the world through her deep, sensitive eyes... and she farts those obnoxious little dog-farts. But we love her.
