Feb, 2002
Walking with the dogs in the rice farming community
of Nondu, Thailand
Usually in the early evenings I take a short walk along a dusty red
gravel road that runs on the other side of the rice field behind the
house. Invariably I am followed by the household's two young dogs. A
German Shepherd, about 8 months old and what appears to be a black
Labrador Retriever puppy, no one knows for sure. The Shepherd keeps
close to me but the Retriever puppy scampers all around, running off
the road, down into the rice fields, then back to the road. She picks
up whatever is interesting. A couple of days ago, it was a dead chicken
she found on the road. She carried it high in the air, all along our
walk down to the pond, then all the way back to the house. Yesterday,
she carried a small bone she found near the road, putting it down to go
sniffing around or to swim in the pond, then finding it and carrying
along to the next place. This evening she found what appeared to be
half a lower jaw of a dog or some other small mammal, complete with
teeth. What a trophy.
When we walk down to the pond, we follow the fork to the right. The
pond is about 200 meters down, and the dogs like to swim there and poke
around in the brush. One of these days, I want to follow the fork to
the left. It goes a short way through the woods to the clearing where
the community's cremations are held. There is a large iron box on a
concrete platform, and I'm not sure what all else is there, so I would
like to go and poke around a little just to satisfy my curiosity. Alas,
every time I leave the house, the dogs are with me. I can imagine
getting to the clearing and that Lab puppy running off and picking
something up in its mouth and me chasing it around, waving my arms
yelling "Hey! drop that!!!" or something of the sort.
Not a pretty picture.
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