Peace Love and Hot Dogs: Red Dog at Malad

I know we’ve delayed this long enough. But some good stories take long in the telling. You think you got what it takes to beat the nice off our first “awesome, benevolent, heroine and Hungry Hogger”?

Read on to find out.

We walked up to the building, giggling and gossiping, and as usual stopped to pet the friendly neighborhood mutt; except that he wasn’t very friendly on this particular night. He shied away, afraid and limping. A closer look stopped us right in our tracks. A swollen eye, a broken front left paw, and sides wounded so deeply, that there was no more fur or skin, just raw, red flesh. “What happened to you?” we asked, as he backed away, scared and helpless. “We’ve got to do something” I said. “He’s too scared; he might bite if we get too close. Let’s go upstairs, he’ll be all right” she replied. But neither of us could move. We both knew his chances of getting better were minimal. “I think there’s a shelter a few blocks away” she said.
“Its past 12, it’s probably closed. And how will we get him there?”
“Its not too far, I’ll take an auto and go check”
I do believe in the Universe, and that sometimes it’s just on your side. An auto stopped a few feet in front of us. She got in.
“OK, be safe, call me on the way”
“I will”
We stood there alone, me and little him. He was still trying to move away. All of a sudden a pack of dogs came bounding down the road. Survival of the fittest, part of their instinct. They circled him, I picked up a stone and raised my voice. He realized I was on his side, and hobbled over to hide behind my legs. As soon as they were out of sight, he let me stoke his nose. Relief and a sad almost smiling expression in his open eye. My phone rang.
“He’s not coming out, he’s shouting for me to come in an speak”
“Who?”
“the guy at the shelter, he’s awake”
“Don’t go in.
“OK stay on the phone, am coming back”
“How are we going to get him into the auto, don’t think he’ll let us touch him”
“Let’s see, am almost there”
The auto stopped on the opposite side of the road. She whistled and snapped her fingers, “come here, come..”
I patted him on his hind leg, pushing him toward the auto. He understood! He hobbled to the auto and climbed in, broken paw and all. We rode to the shelter, stoking his head and amazed at how he just walked up and right into the auto. In a few minutes we were at the shelter, we called out for the caretaker to open the gate. No response. We yelled and knocked the gate, and the auto driver joined in. finally a young boy came up to the gate, “Andhar lao” he said, we walked in and snapped our fingers so that he would follow us. The boy closed the gate and came towards us with a rope. Holding both ends, one in each hand, he whipped the rope in the air, as though trying to cast fishing net. The dog backed away. The auto driver motioned towards the boy to hand him the rope. “Pyaar se bando. Itna darte ho to kuta ka kaam kaisa karega tu?”
The auto driver bent down and petted the dog. Slowly he tied the rope around his neck, and then led him down the passage into the shelter. Once in the dog was put into an enclosed area. We were handed a form and asked to fill it out. I began.“ Date –OK, time – 1: 30 am, colour of dog – brown”

“red! Ye lal hey na madam?” said our auto driver. “nahi, brown” with both replied smiling. A couple of signatures, one final pat goodbye and we were on the way home, chatting with the driver. Now I can’t recollect the exact sentence “Ek ju , ne doosre ju par…” Well essentially he said that this was one soul showing kindness to another, that we did a very good thing, and that he did a good thing that night because of the two of us. We thanked him and said that it was fortunate that we found an auto driver as helpful as him.
According to the form at the shelter, they’d keep him until he was healed and then call us when they let him go. We said we’d go back to check up on him in a week - we didn’t; and we didn’t receive any calls from the shelter; but if I’m ever back in Malad again, am going to keep an eye out for a lovely red dog.

Courtesy - Anonymous aka the blue ribboned belle