23/ 100 Chapati Bed Dog
Chapatis and Biscuits for Tea?
In the old part of the city of Jodhpur you seemed to never be more than a few steps from a dog. The locals will tell you that Jodhpur officially has the highest number of strays of any Indian city and, whilst I couldn’t deny that there were plenty of them, I couldn’t dig up any official figures to back this up.
Yesterday I wrote about a dog that appears each evening and sleeps on a blanket that also magically appeared each evening. Today’s dog has gone for the budget bed option, but it does have full catering options available so perhaps that makes up for it.
Whilst we are all quite obsessed with our dog’s diets here in the West – paying some pretty hefty sums for fancy dog food – the dogs there eat an apparently bizarre array of snacks. In the photograph above you can see a water bowl (empty, but usually full of milk). A packet of green tea (not sure that’s for the dog, but nothing in India surprises me). An opened packet of human biscuits, and a single chapati.
We were told by several of our friends in India that the chapatis are cooked specifically for the dogs, or cows. Apparently it is quite traditional for the housewife to give the first two chapatis, and the last two, to the animals every single day. These tasty breads are made from a type of wheat flour, water and salt. They are then cooked on a simple hot pan with no oil or anything else. From what I can gather they are cooked fresh in just about every home, every single day.
Now, in the picture above there is a whole chapati and biscuits still laying there. Having owned many dogs in my life who would simply eat anything until they were sick (and then they would start all over again) I can only assume that the dogs in Jodhpur have more than enough food. I wouldn’t be able to walk my dog Chip past that chapati without him lunging over to get it, even if he had just had his dinner.
Certainly the dogs aren’t all skinny and wasting away so they must be getting enough food. The few we saw that were obviously sick and injured seemed to be suffering from fighting injuries, mange or some other skin disease, or had been hit by a vehicle. They may not have a Kennel Club approved balanced diet but they seem to do alright on the food they are given by kind people.
I have a favour to ask
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