The black brothers

These are our building dogs. They've been living in our compound since April 2004.

Earlier they used to live in the park next door with their mother, whom I called Kajol and who had exactly the same colouring. But our old building dog Toby-Raja died in September 2003 and it soon got around on the doggy grapevine that there was a territory vacant, food included. I'd had the whole family neutered early in 2004 and soon after they moved in.

There were three resident females at the time, Rani, Timmy and a red one I called Beauty; but they didn't really mind the newcomers. There's lots of space and food to go around here.

Over the years the females passed on one by one: last year we lost Timmy and then Kajol. Now we have only the black brothers left.



My names for them are Hellraiser 1 and Hellraiser 2. In the pictures above and below, H2 is on the left and H1 is on the right.

The names are rather misleading because these dogs are very timid and quieter than mice. They do howl a bit on the seafront some nights, for reasons I have not been able to fathom, but inside our compound they rarely make a sound.

My other names for them are Motu (fat) and Raja (king).

They were born some time in 2002, which makes them nine years old now.



Kimaya has been wanting to make friends with them for a long time, but they are self-sufficient and don't want any friends.



Above, below: Kimaya with Hellraiser 1/Raja.



Below: He is polite to her, I think for my sake. He knows me to be a harmless, generally benign sort of idiot. That's because I had him bundled off to hospital when he was sick some years ago (liver problems caused by the rich food my neighbours were giving him).





Like I said, he doesn't really want any friends.

Mumbai