Monday, April 28

I needed some supplies and Shanti seemed restless so I suggested we went for a walk. I read in a Guardian supplement on Saturday that dogs can recognise up to 1,000 words, and from her reaction to my conversational suggestion I suspect I can count walk as one of the words she recognises.

When she plays games of catch, which she likes doing, she almost always races off to catch the ball and races back into the house to store it in a self-designated special place on the terrace where she keeps things. She hasn’t yet seen the benefit of giving me the ball so we can play another round.

Something similar happens with the idea of going for a walk. She leaped up enthusiastically, trotted off and then stopped two hundred metres away by the anganwadi, and refused to go any further. She had left the house, done some sniffing and, that done, she declared the walk finished.

We walked home and she happily went into the house, mission completed, while I locked the front door again and walked swiftly to Classic Minimarket, where I bought oranges and other things that I can’t get at the kiosk.

On the way back along the Temple path I stop to take some photos of the reflections.

A win-win situation for man and dog.