The Canine Chronicles

 Pups Galore

Radha circled the crowd.  How did it come to this?  So many of the brahmacharins wanted to fondle her puppies.  They seemed not to mean any harm, though she was ever on the alert.  There was one day where the crowd was close to 15 or 16 humans.  The pups didn't seem to worry, however, so Radha began to trust that this was all meant to be.

After all, they were getting food, water, milk and it was helping her to get some much needed breaks from the endless greedy suckling!!  Honestly, she had begun to feel like a walking milk tanker and nothing else.

Radha had dropped a significant amount of weight during the key feeding weeks and the strange-amma was concerned for her skin-and-bone appearance, so took to quietly feeding Radha behind the trees, away from pups, peoples and peeking eyes.  For this Radha showed gratitude in a manner she had not previously.  She began to allow the amma to touch her.  Very lightly and very briefly, but trust was building.

Then came a horror moment for Radha.  She returned from a foraging trip to find the pups stinking to the tree tops of some form of chemical.  They had clearly been dunked in something - and not the usual something they managed to dunk themselves in!

It took a couple of hours of running them around in the grounds to start removing the odour so that she could bear to be near them again.

Two days later this happened once more.

Radha was concerned.  She ran around them trying to determine what had happened.  Then one of the humans who smelled truly 'proper' to her, came over and could see her distress.  Within minutes, that lady was joined by the elder Uncle.  Radha heard the lady ask Uncle about something, but she could not make out what it was about.  Uncle appeared to be showing concern and kept pointing at the pups then the drain which was their home.

Some time after this, another man appeared.  He was dressed in yellow clothes and had an air of authority about him - but to Radha, he also smelled 'proper'.  She could sense compassion and even love from this man.

Next day the strange-amma came, accompanied by the young lady from yesterday, who went through the finger pointing and appeared to be pleading with the amma.  Strange-amma looked at the anxious mother.  Radha held her gaze.  She somehow knew this human had only her best interests at heart, as well those of the pups.  After a long moment, there was a gentle nodding of the head and a resigned sound from amma.

Radha rounded up the family and herded them back into the relative safety of the storm drain.  As silent as ever she somehow managed to get the kids to all lie down and settle.  They had been running crazy that whole day. All the being picked up and put down and turned around was tiring for them.  This was not a bad thing on the whole, decided Radha, for it gave her some peace in the night.  She pondered the scene with the amma and the seriousness of that look they had shared.  Radha had an instinct that they were going to get even more closely acquainted.

Little did she know...

The very next day, Radha came back from her foraging to find the four pups being put through some kind of torture.  At least it looked like that - but they didn't seem to be complaining and the three humans involved were emanating only love and care. From a distant spot, sitting sphinx-like, she watched as strange-amma directed the uncle and the authority man in the actions being perpetrated upon the pups.  There was water and a spray and lots of cloth involved.  Plus some strange looking twigs with bristly heads, which were used to run over the coats of the pups.  Radha could see that the three humans were picking off all the fleas!!!

OOOOHHHHH - they were trying to clean the pups of all the bitey things!  Good luck to them, thought the young mother.  They'd be as bad again in a matter of a day or two.  Radha sniffed the air.  Now she began to put things together.  She had seen the Uncle with the pups on other days and a bucket of the wet stuff.  It was after that they had stunk so badly.

She began to understand. Uncle had been using the wet stuff on her pups because of the fleas… he seemed to be worried all the time.  This time was different though - the smell was still strange but not dreadful and amma appeared to be keeping things under control. Clearly they had called for her help in order to prevent uncle from doing damage with the sprays.

After some two hours or more, four very pretty pups appeared!!

© Yamini Ali MacLean