Lukia

Posting from Ray on Thurs, Nov 6, 2008

Well I finally feel like our household is complete now. Yesterday morning at about 6am Garrison one of the members of our congregation who is a dog handler here in for a security company, brought over our new guard dog. Probably one of the most scared looking puppies I have ever seen. She is an African dog, brownish tan in color. Thin, as are all dogs in Malawi. She probably weighs 7 or 8 pounds, and stands about 10 inches or so high. Garrison said that it was a male, but we discovered today at the vet that she is a female. We started with the name of Luke, and had to alter it to Lukia. We were told that she was 3 months old but was pretty small for being that old, although dogs as well as kids are under sized and undernourished in Malawi. Garrison said she was the last of the litter to be bought by someone, so was probably lonesome as well.

When he first put the puppy down, she would hardly move, she was so scared. But after a few minutes, she felt brave enough to go try and hide in the back someplace. If we followed her, she would just run away. The whole time before we left to go to the orphanage, she would just run and hide from Alice and me. The only person that she was going near or paying attention to was Zione. I guess the dogs in Malawi are kind of spooked by Mzungu (a white person) also.

Anyway, when we got home last night I made a concerted effort to make friends, and after finally getting her picked up, she got calmed down and decided that she liked being petted and paid attention to. By the time Alice and I went to bed, she was lying at my feet and following us around when we got up to walk anywhere to see what was happening. She has fleas and is pretty dirty, but still a pretty good deal for 10USD.

We had to be up by 4:30 this morning so I could go help plant maize and Alice could go to the market with Esther, and when Alice walked out to let Evance know that she was ready for hot water for her bath, the puppy greeted Alice with a happy little bark. I got one as well. It is nice to be liked.

We got to knock off early today so that we could get ready for the arrival of Erle and Jamie, so we took Lukia to the vet for whatever vaccinations she needed and a flea bath. The vet was a good man who understands animals and feels like I do that if you are going to own a cat or dog that they should be treated well. She got her first shot and a flea bath, and has to go back for her second shot in three weeks. After she got her bath she got cold and so had to ride home wrapped in a towel. She has followed us around since we got home and if I sit down and am willing to pick her up, she is willing to fall asleep on me. Right now she is fast asleep lying beside me with her head in my lap. Not very easy to type with believe me, but very cute.

I still don’t have a cat, but I am working on that. There is a small white cat that has twice tried to check out our house by sneaking in one of our windows. That may be the one. And at least for a while there is the cat that lives at Esther and Stephano’s that likes me at will let me pet it. Some of the children at the orphanage think I am kind of strange since I like cats and dogs, but so do a lot of adults not only here in Malawi ,but the US as well.

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Update: The first part of this was written 2 weeks ago after we got Lukia, and this is a follow up after we have had her for a while. Lukia is getting bigger and fatter. She is probably 10 lbs. now. She is eating Alpo dog food, and we had to buy a bigger bowl for her food because she delights in carrying her bowl around and dumping her food over. The flea bath got rid of all her fleas and the worm medicine seems to have allowed her to gain weight. She greets us every morning when we get up and meets us at the gate when we get home at night. Right now she is sprawled out on one of our sofas sleeping. She and the night watchman guard our house at night so she needs to get her sleep now while it is still early (7pm). When we go to bed I will take her out and hand her to Ben our night watchman and they will sit on our porch all night to keep watch. And she is earning her keep because she is barking at sounds that she is alarmed at, but is not barking all night.

Now all I need are monkeys………