Introducing...Moongphali!

Only rarely do I actually get around to writing posts, as most of you know. Despite its name, this is largely Dave's blog. However, when something really important comes up I'll make an exception. Today, that important thing is Moongphali, our semi-adopted street dog. (Moongphali means 'peanut' in Hindi.) He's brown all over, is missing the top of his right ear, and has the most pity-inducing big brown doggy eyes I have ever encountered. You can tell he's had a hard life; whenever we approach to give him food or a pat on the head, he cowers with his tail between his legs. It's so sad.

We first found Moongphals (as we've taken to calling him lately) curled in a corner of our stairwell, shivering and looking very forlorn. He likes to sleep in this corner during the day because it's protected by that open-work metal door you see in the foreground of the picture.

However, Moongphals prefers to spend the chilly nights in our upstairs neighbor's autorickshaw, which he parks in front of the house every evening.


We can almost always find Moongphals in one of these two locations. We try to feed him once a day or so. Here I am feeding him some bread and milk this morning.



He enjoyed it!



Now, having this adorable canine friend living right outside our house raises some difficult ethical issues. To what extent should we pamper him, when there are 10 or 15 other dogs just like him within a one-block radius of our apartment? Should we let him get used to being taken care of, only to be on his own once again after we leave? We can afford to get him vaccines and deworming pills, but is it worth doing if we know that no one will keep it up after this year? I never know where to draw the line with animals. My inclination is to pamper them and take the best care of them that I can, but a couple of things get in the way: 1) I'm cheap; and 2) I worry so much about making them dependent on me that instead of showering them with love and affection, I often go to the other extreme, doing nothing at all for them and feeling eternally guilty about it.

Sigh. And all of this is to say nothing about the thousands of people living on the streets here, sleeping in stairwell corridors and autorickshaws as well.