About Me

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Mumbai, India
I'm a landrace dog fancier. Founder of the INDog Project (www.indog.co.in) and the INDog Club. Before that, I worked with urban free-ranging dogs of Mumbai from 1993-2007. Also a spider enthusiast and amateur arachnologist.

This blog is for primitive dog enthusiasts. It is part of the INDog Project www.indog.co.in. Only INDogs (India's primitive indigenous village dogs) and INDog-mixes (Indies) are featured here. The two are NOT the same, do please read the text on the right to understand the difference. Our aim: to create awareness about the primitive landrace village dog of the Indian subcontinent. I sometimes feature other landrace breeds too. Also see padsociety.org

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Rupee

How nice to have some quiet time to sit and update this blog! The last three weeks have been hideously hectic and I've hardly had any relaxed evenings at home. I'm totally enjoying myself, looking at one gorgeous Indi picture after another and thinking about the wonderful change in these dogs' lives.

Here's a lovely cuddly pup called Rupee (love the name and the pup!), adopted six weeks ago by Rina Peach and her husband in Canada. His original home was New Delhi.


His adoption was arranged through the vet Dr Choudhary and a Canada-based non-profit organization called
AAIDD (Adopt An Indian Desi Dog).

"I was told that he and his brother were rescued from a drainage ditch during the monsoon in New Delhi," Rina writes. "They were kept at a kennel...and through AAIDD I was able to get him."

In the past two years 90 Indian pups have been rescued and adopted in Canada! That's not including Pete and Durga, who were adopted and taken to Canada, but not through AAIDD.
Rupee was 10 weeks old at the time of adoption, and a beautiful little boy as you see.





"He is very intelligent and is adapting well to our cold weather," says Rina. "When we had our first snow I dressed him in a green jacket and took him outside to play. He liked it so much he was eating the snow, running in circles and then started to dive, head first, into piles of snow and disappearing under."

I'm amazed every time I see photos like this, at the ease with which our dogs adapt to cold climates. Search for Deepa in this blog (Nicole Poyyayil's Deepa, not Godfrey and Tina D'Souza's) for more snow pictures. Also Durga in Canada, Rhada and Otis in the US and several more.



Above: Rupee with his family!



Above: "We also take him to a beautiful park and beach in the middle of the city of Vancouver, which is dog friendly. He plays with all the dogs there and there he met for the first time another puppy from New Delhi that was adopted a few days after Rupee. His name is Ben."



Above: Rupee is growing slim and long-legged, and it'll be interesting to see how he looks when he grows up. Like many big-city dogs, he is probably INDog-mix (with a bit of some other breed mixed with aboriginal dog); but it's often hard to tell what the mix is specially a few generations after the mongrelization happened, as the dogs revert back to a typical Pariah look.

Also the temperament seems very similar among INDogs and INDog-mixes, judging by feedback from many owners who have written to me. All owners so far have described their dogs as very intelligent and a little independent. Some describe a slightly nervous temperament, but that is probably due to trauma in the early part of their lives, and the dogs usually grow out of it in their new loving homes.

A big hug to Rupee and all our other Indi ambassadors!

Photos: Rina Pita Peach
Vancouver
Canada

3 comments:

Sarah said...

wow .. that's amazing! I had no idea there were so many desi's here in Canada.

doggylove said...

rupee is just wonderful!! he will turn into a handsome stud yaar!!just u wait!all pardesi's drooling for this young handsome desi!!

wandereress said...

so good to know about Rupee. Its a pity that most dog loving Indians don't realize the treasures they miss by not adopting INdogs like Rupee.