Mutts mourn a local hero

We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of one of our most dedicated and fervent community volunteers, Chungda Jamba Gurung, affectionally known to the team as Chungda didi.
Since the Himalayan Mutt Project began our work in 2014, Chungda didi, who loves dogs, has fervently supported our efforts in her home district of Manang.
Chunda didi had wanted to neuter her Himalayan mastiff, a yak herding dog named Puppy, in 2014, but he was at the higher elevation guarding her herd of yak. Chunga didi then promised that she would make sure he was around for our sterilisation camp the following year.
When we returned to Ngarwal, we found Puppy tethered by a leash to a door post outside her home. Puppy was not happy and whined the whole day. "He wants to be with the yak." She said. However, that year, we did not base our neutering camp in Ngarwal, but in the village of Braka, a full days' hike away. The Himalayan Mutt Project tries to base our camps in villages where there are the most number of unsterilised dogs in that particular year. Since we had visited Ngarwal the year before, the following year, we moved to another village. Not wanting to miss us for another year, Chungda didi sought the help of a neighbour to walk her dog down over 1000 m in elevation from her mountain home. Puppy was very unhappy to be separated from Chungda didi and the yak, and kept the whole village awake with his barking and whining during the night. We were to keep him in Braka and return him to Ngarwal the following day after his surgery. Once in the four-wheel drive, Puppy was quiet. He seemed used to bumpy rides and was a comfortable mountain traveller. Puppy's affection for Chungda didi, we believe, was a potent indication of the kind, generous, and dedicated human being that Chunda didi was. We imagine that Puppy misses her dearly.

Chungda didi kept her promise to neuter Puppy. She raised to the task again in 2018, when we returned to carry out the distemper survey. She had reached out to all dog owners from her village of Ngarwal to bring their dogs to her home and inn, where she had volunteered to host us at no expense, for the duration of our work. That year, in additional to sterilisations and rabies vaccines, we screened all dogs for distemper, a kind of disease that is similar to measles in humans. Our success in Ngarwal could not have been possible without her.

Kommentare