India: Dogs (and cats)

There is an overwhelming amount of information and detail to go through in order to thoroughly recap our trip. So I'm starting a little series that will just focus on one aspect at a time. This way I can post a short post and just cover a single thing... Also, I'm all drugged up on decongestants and the idea of writing something coherent is a little intimidating. We'll let the pictures do the talking.

There are lots of dogs in India. This picture was taken at one of the school's we visited in Rishikesh. This school is for dalit (untouchable) children. Dalits are considered to be outcastes within the caste system. The easiest way to understand how a person can be an outcaste within the caste system is that they have no caste. The people are treated so low that they were considered animals who can talk. Now the caste system is illegal in India today, but people are still imprisoned by their caste. We went to a school for middle-class kids; there were no dogs walking around. Obviously a dog on any campus is a safety issue. Now this dog did not seem like a safety issue, he was totally asleep and unconcerned the entire time we were there. But it's just something I noticed.

This dog was hanging out by the Ganges River. He came up to our little group and wasn't begging. He just kind of stuck close in case anyone wanted to drop any food. Maybe he could tell we were tourists. Even though dogs are everywhere, I never saw a dead dog. This surprised me, because even in America where relatively few dogs roam the roads, I've seen plenty of dogs that have been hit by cars.

There are also plenty of pet dogs. This is Snoopy; Helena's dog. She had lots of fleas, but other than that, she was totally safe. She had all of her shots and vaccines: a proper pet. Snoopy could open the screen door. She would stick her paw in the screen, pull it open, stick her nose around the side to catch the door, and walk inside or outside whenever she wanted to. She also remembered where people were. She came to get me in my bedroom five minutes after I had played with her.

We only saw three cats in India. Two in homes and one running acoss the street. This one was at Helena's children's home (Bal Vikas Kendra) and is clearly injured. I hope he makes it.