Chloe

Ginga and BooBoo's friend Chloe came visiting from Chicago to get away from the big city and enjoy life in the rural wilderness. We introduced Ginga to Chloe first. Chloe initially didn't take too well to Ginga's sniffing of her behind and there were a few moments when Ginga got told off. Ginga also got snapped at when he tried to mount Chloe... Ginga - not on the first date, buddy. Fatass treated Chloe with a little more respect after that and we think he's on the path to becoming a true 'gentledog.' This is Chloe.

Wish I had muscles like that!

Ginga and BooBoo also had lots of fun. And, they responded to "Come" very well. OK OK so we had to bribe them!

All the doggies decided to have mud baths. Wish they were as happy about having baths in good, clean water. Ginga decided that he was going to try to avoid the after-walk bath by rubbing some of the mud off the grass.

BooBoo later had fun in the fountain - that did not save him from a proper bath though. Even the high pressure of the fountain couldn't take off the smell of whatever dead animal he had rolled around in.

Booboo's clone

Despite all the love that Ginga has for the Booster, Ginga was a bit overwhelmed to find out that Dr. I-mei's evil project to clone Booboo has finally come to fruition. :D. Her name is Reilly, she is as mischievous as Booboo, always wants to run around the Ginga and to top it all, she lives in the next building. Ginga was so confused that he started whaling his frustration at this unfair "two-on-one" border collie onslaught. Reilly's owner is positive that Reilly is not a border collie though. She was told Reilly is a poodle/Australian Shepperd mix. You be the judge:

Isn't she just another Booboo ? Even Booboo had to pause a moment:
" Hold on, if I am there and here at the same time, does that mean I cannot get blamed for the "latest expensive bread-stealing" episode ?"

Reilly already took a liking of the Ginga and nipped at his chops as you can see on the video. Ahhhh, the wonders of science !



PS: Just in case you were wondering, we do not approve of any kind of dog-cloning initiatives. We believe that cloning should be limited to protein, genome sequencing effort and Jessica Alba.

Dog Conference 2007

Lots of doggies decided to attend this year's dog conference to chat. Our secret informer inside the conference gave us these exclusive photos of what transpired. The main topics of discussion included poop, pee, rabbits, squirrels, trash, stinky dead things and how to pretend to not understand what the annoying human is saying. Needless to say Ginga Boo are experts at that but the other doggies also gave them some pointers.

We couldn't sneak a picture of all the participants, but here are some of them:
Tango, Ginga, Goucho, Lily and Scottie. Tango's half border collie, half retriever (something like a Boonga), Goucho's a half border collie, half collie and Scottie's all Border collie.

Here's Tango, posing, also featuring Ginga, not posing.

Goucho tries to tell Lilly, "How YOU doin'?"

Tango and Lily really hit it off together, despite Goucho's interest. They looked like black and white versions of each other and kept sneaking off into the bushes and coming back looking very happy. Goucho looks confused... the how you doin' look always works with all the other ladies.

Apparently there was lots of other action too. Ginga was the initiator this time and in the thick of things.

The black-and-whites volunteered to check up on the best spots for perfume and massage. Unfortunately they rolled all over the stinky dead stuff before anybody else could get there so their scouting didn't quite benefit the conference. Well they're smiling now but they won't be once they get showered at home.

They came back pretending nothing had happened. The smell is tell-tale though doggies. Even the humans within miles can smell that.

Ginga enjoyed himself thoroughly. He took up the role of the guard and went ahead on the trail and looked back every now and then to make sure everyone was following. The other doggies didn't know what "trail" meant so they were after every squirrel in the woods. If they didn't come back when called, though, Ginga had something to say to them. Tough love with Ginga. With his short stature and military bearing, maybe he was Napoleon in a previous birth.

Ah yes the humans bring welcome food. Excellent.

Wait... oh Ginga got it first. Now there won't be any left for anyone else. No point in trying.

BooBoo and Scottie may be related. They had the same mannerisms. Hey, maybe we brought home the wrong one, this could be just like parent trap.

We were afraid Benji couldn't keep up but he was a trooper. Since he can't see he had to go by his other senses... often his senses told him to go away from where all the big dogs were making lots of noise. Although he could not resist posing when the camera was on him.

Boo took a particular liking to Benji and made sure he kept up. Benji didn't like that very much usually. He's older than all of the rest, he can take care of himself. Sorry Benji, hang around with enough Border Collies and you'll start getting herded.

After the conference concluded the dogs decided to rest.

When asked, Lily said the conference was delicious and also flirted with our correspondent. Or was she just licking off the remainder of some food?

Have a good summer everybody, more conferences will be arranged soon.

Save the dogs concert

There's going to be a concert to save the dogs at Stein Auditorium at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi on April 24th. Govindrajan Elangovan and Rekha Raj will be singing. It will be carnatic and sufi music.

I'm not sure if this is related to the Delhi concert, but I encourage Bangaloreans to learn more about the stray dog issue. Stray dogs of Bangalore who are being killed by the local authorities in gruesome ways to cover up their own corruption and inefficiency. The authorities do not dispose of garbage in time, leading to stray dogs on the street. A culling programme has been instituted for the strays. The Bangalore authorities have failed to realise that killing the dogs will have no effect as long as they have food on the streets to live on. Other dogs will just come in from the villages to replace the dead ones. A similar thing happened in Mumbai before and they realised that there was no use to the killing. Instead they have sterilization programmes now which have been effective in keeping the dogs from hurting people and each other.

Sushruta and others are trying to work towards a reasonable solution in Bangalore but have been stymied by the politics so far. Anyone who is on the fence about the stray dogs can take a look at this post (warning: extremely graphic images) by raccoon who demolishes some of the common myths about the usefulness of culling.

GB on the brain

GingaBoo go so well together that they should be in the movies. BooBoo is smart, physically kind of a weakling but Ginga follows him without question. Ginga is strong and tough, hedonistic, a bit immature and almost totally instinct driven. Following are some famous duos that remind us of Ginga and BooBoo:

Laurel and Hardy
Pinky and the Brain
Obelix and Asterix
Captain Haddock and Tintin
Getafix (druid) and Vitalstatistix (chief)
Captain Kirk and Dr. Spock
Veeru and Jai (of Sholay)
Pullo and Vorenus (Rome)
Porthos and D'Artagnan (3 musketeers)

In other news my camera breathed its last on an operating table due to a highly incompetent surgeon (myself). Note to self: the 'gently' in 'push lens in gently' is relative to 8 year old humans, not 8 year old baby elephants. So that is why the lack of GB pictures, in case anyone was wondering.

GingaBoo on the issues

GingaBoo take on some issues that are dividing the nation.

1. Iraq
Ginga - Democrat - poop and run
BooBoo - Republican - stay the course (poopoos in one place and no running after)

2. Health care
Ginga - Republican - doesn't need to go to doctor often, doesn't see why he should pay for anybody else to do so.
BooBoo - Democrat - he's in and out of the doctor's. Feels the pain of the people who can't afford it :(

3. Gay marriage
Ginga - Liberal - I'll hump any dog that presents himself or herself. No exclusivity here.
BooBoo - Republican - I hump only Sophie. (and my blanket but let's not talk about that)

4. Hillary or Barack?
Ginga - Barack - he's charming, like BooBoo
BooBoo - Hillary - I do love strong women like my mummy and favourite aunty

5. Sanjaya Malakar of American Idol - in or out?
Ginga - In - he's just like Barney the purple dinosaur. Annoying to anyone over 12 but loved by anyone under.
BooBoo - Out - even I can bark better than him. What do you mean, "he was trying to sing?"