Not a very good picture I know...but my recent trip to Pench (yesterday) was very rushed and I didn't have time for my usual dog-watching.
This dog lives in a village called Bandra. Yes, like our Mumbai suburb Bandra. For me the name has even more significance as one of my dogs is named Bandra.
The village is near Pench Tiger Reserve, Maharashtra. Interesting fact: this is one of three award-winning villages that have been judged the best in Maharashtra. It has exemplary sanitation, waste disposal and rainwater harvesting systems. The inhabitants are mainly Gond tribals.
Many Gonds seem to like dogs, but then many other tribes like dogs too. In the days when they lived in their traditional manner, dogs were their hunting partners. Even now, though hunting is a thing of the past, you will often see dogs living as pets in Gond households. As watchdogs, livestock guardians and just as companions.
Incidentally, dogs that kill poultry are not tolerated by villagers. I've heard of dogs being poisoned when they show this behaviour. Not in Gond villages specifically, but in Nagaon and in Moharli (near Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve) and other places. Since village dogs grow up in the company of chickens and other domestic animals like goats, they are socialized with them, and however strong their prey drive might be, it is rarely if ever directed at these species. Which is why chickens walk quite confidently around dogs and sometimes appear in my INDog photos, as in this one.
For more pictures of dogs in tribal villages, click here, here and here. Please note that in the post "Village dogs of the Satpudas," some of the dogs are mix-breeds (mongrels) and not INDogs/Indian Pariahs.
Near Pench Tiger Reserve,
Maharashtra/Madhya Pradesh border
