Stray dogs, seepage & reading logs

One of my friends lives in an area near here where there are a lot of houses (ie as opposed to high rise apartments) and a lot of wandering stray dogs constantly hang around the streets there. Some of the residents have been getting in quite a state about the dogs and seem to have been spending ages thinking out and then writing emails to each other on the residents’ email forum. My friend and I think some of these threads are hilarious. Here’s one from a few days ago. If only this amount of energy was put into changing the dire state that many of the local daily wage earners live in!!!

> Subject: An Appeal To All Stray Dog Lovers
> From: I
> Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2013
> To

>
> Dear Stray Dog Lovers,
>
> I write this after a lot of deliberation and anguish. Being a dog lover myself (having spent 12 wonderful years with Wishbone) I really thought hard and long before writing this mail.
>
> There are 15 dogs in front of my house and it is impossible to have a peaceful moment in the evenings or a good night’s sleep at night because of the constant nuisance of barking dogs 10 metres from my house.
>
> My daughter starts her board exams from tomorrow and I would really like her to sleep well before her exams.
>
> So here is my suggestion. Can I please please bring them over to spend the next one month in front of your homes?
>
> I don’t know the names of all the stray dog lovers – but going by the google group Mr P and Mrs A do come to mind.
>
> Sir and Ma’am could you please forward your house numbers so that I can relocate these guys in front if your homes please? I am sure there are many more of you who I don’t remember, but I am positive you will willingly volunteer and let me know your house numbers.
>
> I am sure being an ardent lover of dogs you will not decline my humble request.
>
> Cheers!
>
> I

On Tue, Feb 26, 2013 at 10:18 P wrote:
I – I have done my duty by taking 1 stray inside my home, now it’s your turn to take 1 inside your home and find 14 more volunteers to do the same to solve this problem. It might not be that difficult to find 15 volunteering homes out of 1000 in Nirvana.

You could also get in touch with AWBI to find a solution to your problem and also check with RWA as to why stray population has not been controlled in time.

You must be thankful to the efforts of all volunteers that they are putting in their time and effort to get all strays neutered and vaccinated so that their population does not grow anymore. Join this initiative to contribute something positive to handle this problem, I know writing a sarcastic mail is always a convenient route but it does not reduce stray population in any way.

P

Dear Mr. P

I don’t want to get into a war of words with you on this forum as is often the case.

However, here is what I have understood from your reply. That YOU have already done your bit by taking one stray inside your home, and therefore however vocal your support maybe towards stray dogs in the colony, you don’t want any more near YOUR house. Else you would have been open to my suggestion. That is fair, we are all entitled to have our opinion and I will henceforth not ask you if I can re-locate some of the strays to an area near your house.

Having said that, just like YOU are entitled to have your opinion – SO AM I. And I do not want 15 or even one stray near my house. So please let’s refrain from sermons, on how I should be doing my duty by taking one home. I would rather feed the kids of the construction worker next to my house. But that is MY opinion and you don’t have to agree to it.

And no Sir, there was no sarcasm yesterday and there is none today.

Cheers!

I

On Wed, Feb 27, 2013 at 12:13 P wrote:
I- You seem to have missed the entire point that until you take the lead in neutering all these 15 dogs in your vicinity, they will soon become 150. Amita, Pradeep and other volunteers can only help you in achieving the neutering objective as a larger community goal but they are under no obligation to take these dogs home irrespective of your appeals or convoluted logics.

It would be great if you can provide a home to at least 1 of these 15 and also find 14 more homes to replicate this initiative. Many of us have already done it and now it’s your turn to grow beyond writing mails and do something tangible that would help the community reduce no. of strays around. I know it’s great to have opinions but to solve community problems we need to go beyond opinions and do something concrete………….

From: I
Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2013 12:47:11 +0530
To: P
ReplyTo: I
Subject: Re: An Appeal To All Stray Dog Lovers

P- like I said I don’t want to get into a war of words with you. So, you keep your opinion and strays to yourself, and let me keep my opinion and NO strays.

Cheers!

I

Subject: Re: [Nirvana Residents] An Appeal To All Stray Dog Lovers
To: I; P
CC: nirvanaresidents@googlegroups.com
From: s
Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2013

Quite a dog fight :-). I also love dogs but feel scared to walk around in the evening, wondering which one will be bad mood. Thus I carry my gun ! Not a good thing to do in a nice locality like Nirvana.

Is there any way to judge dog moods except the tail signs ?
Sent by S from BlackBerry® on Airtel

From: A
: RE: An Appeal To All Stray Dog Lovers

Date: Thursday, 28 February,

I- I wish to remind you that dogs are territorial beings – they will naturally move back to their chosen area.

That said, continued barking especially at night, is indeed a nuisance, and I wish I could offer some solution for it. Abroad they use ‘anti-barking collars’, but these would be too expensive and would be stolen within minutes here!

The best way out would be to employ a trainer to train them into conditioned barking only. We had identified a dog trainer for these dogs, and the same person could work on this aspect as well.

Conditioned barking”? I am at a loss to understand. If possible, could someone please elaborate more on this aspect?
Also, on the anti-barking collars – why would anyone want to steal them?

Thanks.

On a different but equally inflammatory note – after a 3 1/2 year lucky streak of only minor seepage issues (ie compared to other people here but still bad by western standards) we are in deep again with what looks like wall fungus on one side of Harveys bedroom.

It backs onto the kitchen so I opened up the cupboard under the sink there yesterday and here’s what greeted me….

Just horrific and it stinks as badly as you might expect. This is how lacking in energy and patience I am right now. Instead of going through the next to useless process of calling concierge and asking them to send a guy to investigate and fix the problem I’m thinking maybe we can just gaffer tape up the board at the back of the sink that is coming away from the wall and just hope it doesn’t get any worse before we leave!! It’s either that or I would say probably minimum 2 weeks of up to 10 workmen in our apartment all day everyday contemplating their navels while they daydream about how nice it would be to have tools. Sarcastic I know but sadly not far from the truth.

Harvey’s library teacher meanwhile has been on at me to send through the last 6 months worth of reading logs that I am supposed to complete each month. The concept is that after school each day I should make H sit down and read for at least 20mins and I should then write the name of the book, how many pages he read and exactly how long he read for in the log and sign it. I’ve refused to do it because,
A) he reads a lot everyday already, mostly at night time
B) I don’t want to police it and make it really annoying for him, and
C) after a long day at school where there is zero free time the last thing I’m going to do is force him to sit and read so I can sign off on the reading log
Anyway because we are now into the last month of the school year the librarian has decided there will be no reading log this month but she writes “I trust this will not detract from your child’s reading progress and enjoyment of books”. I hardly think so!!