Summer Socialization

More than almost any dog in the past, our Mowgli is very astute about the nonverbal cues around him. With us, his family of two humans, a German Shepherd and two domestic short-hair cats, he is the most affectionate boy. Greetings and kisses are required before morning walks and before meals. Whereas the Shepherd, Leela, is most concerned about how quickly she can locate her frisbee during play time or her food during mealtime, he must say a proper 2-3 minute hello.

This same dog however, has zero tolerance for strangers on "his" property and zero interest in getting to know them. You could qualify him as antisocial. While he'll warm up (slowly) to kids and eventually women, he really doesn't prefer the male human at all. Having been put in his two-month quarantine at two weeks old, we are sure if this bit of time on earth is the cause for his disdain of the human race, or the many generations before him who were not only not socialized with and by humans but were treated as street rats.

This Summer has proven to be socialization like none he has had. We kicked off the summer in June with a road trip. Just he and Steph headed to western Nebraska for a seven-day visit to her Dad's. This was the first time he had been apart from his big sister, Leela. He actually was a better dog during this adventure. While he was a little scared, he actually was a little more curious and a little less aggressive with his fears and trusted Steph's commands and reassurance and grew to quite like Steph's Aunt Arlene.

Meanwhile, back home in Iowa, Leela worried herself sick and to the point of colitis. Needless to say, a trip to the vet, fasting and many meds later, Keerat had little relax and free time while the anti-social canine was running like a crazy man at the vast expanse of Clyde's Ranch. This month, we had three separate visits of three families of friends, for a total of 8 kids between the ages of 3 and 11; two sets who stayed over night and another who came for lunch. While we got smarter about our shuffling of people, canines and cats, we do believe that our Mowgli slowly started to accept that we can have visitors come to our home. It is quite embarrassing that the hair on the back of his neck raises and his bark is backed by a growl, with every curious human. We thank Leela for the balance she brings via her great love for people and especially kids!

One Year Wonder

A view into our electronic photo albums would tell you how special our Mowgli is. His big sister Leela is his best friend on the earth, and he is hers.

Diva the grey cat, is likely a close second (to them both) but don't let that secret out to the dogs of India!

He certainly has the energy of a Manchester Terrier and runs with the sleek navigation of a Whippet with the most expressive Basenji-like tail. We're confident that he certainly redefines "mutt" and the part we appreciate the most is his intelligence, balance and versatility.

His accomplishments in 2009 include:

• sit, stay, come,
• eating only his food out of his dish and waiting for Leela to finish hers,
• hide and seek to find one of us somewhere in the house,
• carrying a backpack as if he has a significant assignment,
• sit and come whilst walking by a cooking and waiting until permission is granted,
• learning to catch a Frisbee flying thru the air.

His sense of guilt if he's happened to lick the cats dish clean, is so obvious he can't resist just confessing by flattening his ears to his head and laying on his back in full submission. Every day and Leela bring us more joy than we could have imagined.

October's Introduction

One year ago this month, a young dog on the streets of Mumbai gave birth to six puppies. Two females and four males. They likely were born in a small, safe but dirty place hidden off of the main roads. As one of over 70,000 homeless street dogs in Mumbai, she would have been accustomed to little food the majority of her life including the months of gestation of her six pups. Once born, she would scavenge and ingest as much as she could with the mission of feeding her pups from her mouth and stomach. As with nearly all street dogs, she would teach her young very early to trust no human and to gather and save any potential items that could serve as food.

In November, Rhonda, a flight attendant from Omaha was 'stuck' at the Marriott in Mumbai due to the attacks that ensued late in the month. During her time there, she encountered a skinny light tan dog, as is common in India, and requested that a cab driver go and get her some food for her. He returned with chocolate chip cookies. You see, dogs are viewed as worthy as a common rat - not; therefore there is no knowledge of what food would be best and if there were, regard would be ignored. During her early interactions, she learned that this dog was with pups and soon discovered that her pups were in a trash bag to be disposed of. The two females were dead and the four males were fine, relatively.

To summarize this, she commissioned to have them brought back to the U.S. with her. After two months of quarantine in India, the pups flew on their Continental-sponsored flight to Omaha, Nebraska, Rhonda's home.

Now instead of homeless dogs in India, there were five homeless dogs in Omaha. We had already discussed getting another dog and while we had not decided a breed, knew we wanted a female of a smaller breed than our Leela, the German Shepherd. When we saw the news story - a plea for adoption, we knew we had to see these pups and knew that inevitably we would be bringing one home.

On January 8, we met this family and Rhonda. They were extremely scared. Eventually we picked one out; it was almost impossible to not adopt all of them.

Mowgli joined us at our new home, after visiting our local veterinarian, who told us were crazy and hoped we could have a meaningful relationship with this two month old street mongrel. Our vet has done a lot of mission work all over the world including India to help with two main goals: disease including a type of mange and sterilization necessary to support the first goal. Per his recommendation, we kept Mowgli quarantined for one week. He lived in our sunroom and could meet, smell and see Leela through the french doors.