pi dog and God

since i've been talking about my mutsy dog this week, i just thought i'd take the opportunity to share about some dogs that really stole my heart on our trip to india.

the indian street dogs. or pi dogs.
pi being short for pariah. pariah meaning outcast.

by their name, you can tell that not many people take them in as cuddly house pets. but the streets of mumbai are filled with them. scrappy little dogs who clean up after society.

these dogs are 10xs smarter than any dog that i know. the can cross indian street traffic better than i can! they may be smarter than me. i've literally seen them look both ways and weave the traffic like frogger. it must be due to generations of natural selection.

they stay out of peoples way...just lurking to find some trash to eat, or a shady spot to sleep.
many of these dogs have seen a lot of abuse. they cower if you reach out your hand to them.

however, i also found them to be some of the sweetest and most gentle dogs i've ever met.
i would freak out my inlaws in india by trying to pet every street dog that i saw! most of them, even though they were wary in the beginning, would be so happy for affection once they learned that i was their friend.


so my husband and i decided that we're going to be advocates for these dogs. there are probably billions of these sweet and intelligent street dogs in india, yet no one wants to adopt them. if people get dogs there, they will usually import a pomeranian or some kind of foreign breed. and most of those breeds are not at all suited for life in the indian subcontinent like the pi dog.

pi dogs are hardy. and cute. and smart.

so anyways, that's my two cents on that issue. if you live in india, please adopt a pi dog. even in the US, muts are awesome people.

i would say that the pi dog of the USA these days is probably the pit bull. of course they don't roam the streets here, but they're kind of the social dog outcast. people have bred them for the wrong reasons, and given them a bad rep. if you go to an animal shelter, the majority of the muts you see look like they have a bit of pit mixed in.

bindi is kind of a social outcast mix. there's no way of knowing her true ancestry, but to me she looks like a mix of pit and pi dog. but i'm telling you, even though she is the biggest and strongest, she is also the sweetest and gentlest natured of all of our dogs.


with her surgery and being in pain this week, it's really had me thinking about God.

weird and random? yes, maybe. that's how my mind works.

i was reading a book last year though by one of my favorite authors. cs lewis. he was talking about the problem of pain...on how God can allow it. he said (in a much more eloquent way) that maybe sometimes it's like when you take your pet to the vet...

you know that the pain is going to make your dog better. the pain will lead to it's healing. but there's no way you can tell your dog that. there's no way that they would understand. all they can know is the pain that they're feeling now. that something horrible is happening to them.
all they can do is trust you.

but i still feel awful seeing my pet in pain...pain that it appears that i'm the cause of....even if it's for their own good. i can't explain it to them. it makes me wonder if God ever feels the same way.

or what if God made us responsible for these creatures to give us some kind of window of understanding...to try to explain these things to us in just some small way?