There is so much still to learn. Perhaps they are lessons I should have learned by now after 8 weeks in Gangtok, but I can well see that the fact I haven't learned them dooms me to repeat the same thing over and over again.
There are two stray puppies at the school, one probably about a year old, the other around 6 months. The one on the left is the younger of the two. The older black dog (we'll call her Belle) was starting to cause trouble for herself at school -- she had joined the school as a puppy and everyone thought it was cute when she would nip them but as an older puppy people became afraid that she would really bite them. Also, she is a bit willful as dogs go and likes to sleep in the classrooms. The cleaning staff are very scared of her and had started beating her to get her out of the rooms. The little puppy (we'll call her Olive) is a biter and a bit wild, but still cute and small enough for everyone to love her.
Needless to say, as we saw the beatings going on and watched the black dog become more and more ornery, we decided to take both of them from the school and train them properly at home. Ha, ha, I think the joke is on us.
They have been at the house for three days and for the most part it has been ok, but I keep expecting the things that work with our three dogs at home will work in Sikkim, and I just don't think they will. For instance, we want to have happy, quiet dogs, but with the whole neighborhood full of strays, once one of those dogs starts barking, our dogs start barking, at any time day or night. We bought collars and leashes to take the dogs for a walk, but as soon as you step outside the compound there are stray dogs menacingly protecting their territory and growling at us as we try to walk by. Pintso said this morning that before this experiment is over I will have been trained to carry a big stick and hit the other dogs, and I think he is right.
The dogs escape our yard every day and when they come back they have clearly had a great time, but they get riled up and wild while they are out there. And I realized that if they are going to leave the house (not sure how we could possibly do it otherwise) they need to keep some of their streetwise attitude to make it work with the stray dogs. But that attitude makes us not like them as much. And then there is the worry that while they are out there they will get hurt, or beaten by some other human... We need to learn how to not care so much (incredibly hard for Grace to do, by the way) and how to be at peace with whatever happens to the dogs. We did not bring them into this world and we have little control over how they will experience this world. Maybe the best thing for them would have been to be beaten at school until they found a different place to stay. I keep telling Grace that they started out as strays and that they may end up that way again. In the meantime, we will love them, warily, and wait to see what happens, having yet to learn our lesson.
Needless to say, as we saw the beatings going on and watched the black dog become more and more ornery, we decided to take both of them from the school and train them properly at home. Ha, ha, I think the joke is on us.
They have been at the house for three days and for the most part it has been ok, but I keep expecting the things that work with our three dogs at home will work in Sikkim, and I just don't think they will. For instance, we want to have happy, quiet dogs, but with the whole neighborhood full of strays, once one of those dogs starts barking, our dogs start barking, at any time day or night. We bought collars and leashes to take the dogs for a walk, but as soon as you step outside the compound there are stray dogs menacingly protecting their territory and growling at us as we try to walk by. Pintso said this morning that before this experiment is over I will have been trained to carry a big stick and hit the other dogs, and I think he is right.
The dogs escape our yard every day and when they come back they have clearly had a great time, but they get riled up and wild while they are out there. And I realized that if they are going to leave the house (not sure how we could possibly do it otherwise) they need to keep some of their streetwise attitude to make it work with the stray dogs. But that attitude makes us not like them as much. And then there is the worry that while they are out there they will get hurt, or beaten by some other human... We need to learn how to not care so much (incredibly hard for Grace to do, by the way) and how to be at peace with whatever happens to the dogs. We did not bring them into this world and we have little control over how they will experience this world. Maybe the best thing for them would have been to be beaten at school until they found a different place to stay. I keep telling Grace that they started out as strays and that they may end up that way again. In the meantime, we will love them, warily, and wait to see what happens, having yet to learn our lesson.
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