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Wowed by Dalmatian trio
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Three Dalmatians dominate people’s attention in Fort Kochi. Their owners drove with them from London, reports Priyadershini S.
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Photo: Priyadershini S.
Dogged family Penny and Brian Shepherd with Monty, Tizzy and Wooster
Three liver-spotted Dalmatians have been scampering the streets of Fort Kochi, catching everybody’s eye. Monty, 6, Tizzy, 5 and their baby Wooster who’s just one and a half, are seen bounding, leaping, playing happily around the roads alo
ng with stray dogs. But these purebreds from London are as happy as can be.
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“They just love the stray dogs and have made friends with them,” say their masters Penny and Brian Shepherd, who have driven from London to Fort Kochi in their Land Rover. They plan to be in Kochi for some time. “Nobody wants to talk to me about anything other than the dogs,” says Penny with pride about her well-trained and handsome pets. Ask her about the three month long adventurous overland journey that took them across Europe into Slovenia, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and finally entering India at Amritsar and heading down south to Kochi and Penny has a lot of interesting anecdotes to narrate.
In the news
“The Dalmatians have been the news everywhere that we have been. In Istafan, in Iran where dogs are not allowed in the streets but in homes and gardens, we had about hundred people coming out from nowhere and clicking their pictures. This was when the tourist police came and took us to a beautiful square, the centre of town and asked us to walk the dogs. It was indeed amazing to see the number of people who gathered all of a sudden because of them. In Iran the police and the people were very hospitable. The dogs were treated like kings and queens. In the south of Iran we had to take military escort. There we travelled with five French and two Germans,” says Penny about the very long journey which brought them in time for Christmas to Kochi.
And Kochi seems all too familiar to the dogs as they walk around the beach, the lanes and the open spaces.
It was recently that on a late evening that Tizzy got lost. “She is greedy and over friendly. She does all those things that she must not do,” said Penny relieved, after a harrowing search, to find Tizzy waiting sheepishly in her new home at Njaliparambu. Tizzy wears a Swiss cow bell on her collar and the tinkling bell and spotted coat make her seem like a little Jersey. “Both Monty and Tizzy are from rescue homes in England. Dalmatians as a breed are very playful, intelligent and difficult to train. These dogs don’t bite. They befriend all other animals and on the journey made friends with cows, camels, goats and other dogs. In Shiraz we met nomads who had a pack of 17 dogs. The three Dalmatians joined them and enjoyed a long walk with them,” narrates Penny. No wonder the dogs in their new surroundings have befriended the kitten there and the neighbour’s five roosters. And it’s surprising that the roosters have been left alone by these energetic dogs. “They must like them,” says Penny with a smile, “because she still has all five of them.”
Then again, guesses Penny, that it was the dogs that daunted the security in Pakistan allowing them immediate entry into the Indian High Commission. “We had to stay at Police stations in Pakistan as there is very high security, but I think it was the dogs that made the policemen uncomfortable and they allowed us entry almost immediately.
Penny informs humorously, “You know we have carried veterinary medicines worth Rs.36,000 and for ourselves we just had band-aid.” Adds her husband who drove for the most part of the journey, “We camped sometimes and at times slept in the car. We were prepared for any eventuality for the dogs,” And so they carried needles and injections but no dog food in particular. “We bought meat, eggs, vegetables along the way and the dogs had no problems.”
Dog’s life
In Kochi the Shepherds have located a vet but have yet to see him. “You know we have yet to find a doctor for ourselves,” says a smiling Penny. And on a dog’s life in India, Penny bemoans, “I find everybody chains their dogs here. I would rather be a street dog than being chained in a beautiful garden.”
As of now the three dogs are all set to visit the elephant sanctuary at Kodanad, “for a long, long walk,” and to befriend the jumbos.
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