"The dog is not for sale"

Oliver Gordon Young, April, 2012

Background: My friend Reno Taini and I recently had the pleasure of spending an afternoon with Oliver Gordon Young. We had both read "Tracks of an Intruder" his 1967 book about hunting with the Montagnards of northern Thailand. Reno and I may fancy ourselves as "old Asia hands" , but Gordon is the real thing. He was born in 1927 into a Baptist Missionary family in a remote village in Yunnan, China, had Lahu wet nurses, and spoke their Tibeto-Burman language long before acquiring proficiency in English. Like most missionary families, his had a deep understanding of local languages, customs, and beliefs.   I'll write more about his life and times, but here I want to share his story about match-making for Teddy, his Lahu hunting dog.

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"Did you ever encounter indigenous breeds of dogs in the remote hills of northern Thailand", I asked.

Gordon answered without hesitation.

“Yes, there was a breed in the Lahu villages that looked like a small Alsatian – brown and off-white coat with pointy ears, but smaller and more delicately built, and the tail carriage was upright – not like an Alsatian”. 

“I had one named Teddy, given to me as a puppy, and he came from an excellent hunting dog line”.

“They’re known to chase game silently, and Teddy barked only when he cornered wild pigs and deer”.

Teddy watches a tame leopard cub at play with another dog 
(Photo by Gordon Young).

“Teddy’s favorite pastime was fighting stray semi-feral curs quite numerous in those days.

"I remember the time, just outside the compound’s gate, he had pinned a cur to the ground, and seemed to want to hear 'uncle' just one more time.

"I ordered him to ‘go home’, but he just looked at me sheepishly, wagged his tail that he’d heard me, and the theatrics continued.

"I ordered him again and he finally quit, but not before cocking his leg and peeing in the vanquished cur’s face.

"My wife was with me in the Jeep. We couldn’t believe that purposeful gesture.

"Teddy demonstrates the fearlessness of his kind for leopards. Other dogs would panic from just the smell of a leopard, dog's dread and most mortal killer in this area of the world"
(Photo by Gordon Young).

"I was smitten with Teddy’s breed, and considered it probably the best type kept by the Lahu people as hunting dogs. 

"I also wanted to find Teddy a mate, and maybe even start a recognized hunting dog breed.

"While conducting an ethnographic survey in the late 1950s I thought at last I had found the perfect match in a Shehleh Lahu village near Doi Mak Angklang in Chiang Mai Province.

"The dog was sleeping soundly in the shade of the headman’ s bamboo and thatch-grass house, and she was exactly what I was looking for.

"The chieftain said she was a good hunter, and she always obeyed when he told her to back off a cornered boar.

"The last Shehleh chief of the village many 
years after the bargaining. He is holding his 
musical gourd pipe" (Photo by Gordon Young)

“The more he talked about that dog the more interested I became.

“The chief had two good-looking daughters, rather buxom girls between 14 and 16 years, which is marrying age for mountain people, and as was the custom they served us a meal, hill grown red rice with a mustard green curry and a fresh-killed chicken.

“We were sitting round the hearth in his hut, and I offered him 100 bhat for the dog.

"It was a reasonable offer in those days, but he replied “Hpuh chi haw a-hpeh meh”, which means ‘The dog is not for sale’".

"Well, every man has his price, so I offered him 200 bhat, and again he answered, ‘The dog is not for sale’.

”My assistant, Chanu, whispered to me 'Wait till we finish the meal, and then offer him 300 baht'”.

"when we finished eating I made my final offer, and once again the chief repeated ‘The dog is not for sale’.

"I couldn’t believe my ears.

“I just offered you the bride-price! 300 bhat! Does it have to be in silver?

“I could have one of your daughters for that price. Do you mean that dog is worth more than your daughter?

"The chief replied, 'You can have both of my daughters for 300 bhat each, but I will never sell the dog. Hpuh chi haw a-hpeh meh!'"

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References
Young, Gordon. 1962. The Hill Tribes of Northern Thailand. Siam Society, Bangkok
Young, Gordon. 1967. Tracks of an intruder. Winchester Press, New York

Acknowledgement: Many thanks to Gordon and his daughter Debbie Chase for hunting down the family photos for this post.

That smell of dead meat

[Huay Khao Khaeng National Park, Thailand, April, 2005]


"Tiger kill." said Dave.

We were jeeping down a track in the forest when we smelled it.

"Back up and let's see if we can find it. It's coming from down there."

"Prem and I used to try that all the time, and we never found the kill." (Prem Bahadur Rai: the chief shikari on the SI-Nepal Tiger Ecology project.)

"Yeah, well, that was in tall grass. C'mon, man, let's try. At least here we can see where we're going."

We walked into the forest parallel to the road, but the stench came and went.

Time to study the situation. The land sloped gently downhill toward a shallow drainage. It looked like the kind of place a tiger might settle to feed. We moved in, picked up the scent again, and suddenly there it was: a heap of decaying flesh, an adult male sambar.



It's a strange feeling standing next to a tiger's half-eaten kill. The cat could be watching you, or it could be dozing on a full belly.

We took pictures, and followed the drag mark to the scene of the takedown, about 50 yards upslope, next to a fallen tree. The viscera were near by, so we knew the tiger had fed before dragging it into the drainage. We took more pictures and left.

The next morning a swarm of blue bottles rose into the air as we approached. The tiger had returned to finish the remaining haunch. We were pleased with ourselves.

Okay. So I was sitting here typing last week, and I kept seeing vultures out the window. They were cruising just above the trees at the edge of the ravine next to the house, and when I went outside, there was that smell of dead meat again. Plus there were 4 black-tailed bucks up the road by the mailboxes--where they hang out when a puma cruises the ravine.

I packed a camera trap, and slowly headed down the deer trail. Confident from our sniff-out in Thailand, I was going to find that puma's kill and stake a camera. I sniffed audibly like a dog, and periodically tested the air with a wet finger like Romar of the Jungle (which wasn't much help).

A vulture flapped out of the canopy, a good sign. I made sniffing sorties to the left and right. The air currents kept changing and the smell was elusive. I checked the small drainages where a carcass might come to rest, and looked for brush piles where a puma might have covered its prey. Nothing.

"Forget it. You need a bloodhound." I settled on checking a camera trap farther down the ravine.

It was a fine day. The poison oak and shrubs had dropped most of their leaves, the visibility was good, and except for a family of nuthatches, which alternately twittered and beeped, it was very quiet.

I was sitting there next to camera with water bottle in hand, when I heard intermittent walking. I shouldered the pack and padded quietly up the trail where I paused behind two large oaks. When I heard the sound again, I slowly peeked around the trunk. About 30 yards away was a small bear, probably the two-year old I've referred to here as Scruffy.

She stood motionless looking in my direction as I slowly reached for the pipe and toy hammer in my back pocket.

I tapped 5 times and nothing happened.

Again: tap tap tap tap tap. Her senses were completely focussed.

Hmmm, I wondered. Am I between mother and cub? Or is Scruffy going to romp up for a friendly look-see? . . . and then it was time to tap again.

Immediately the bear bolted down the hill. Man-the-tool-user smiled with self satisfaction.

I have a sneaky feeling that Scruffy knew exactly where the carrion was, and that reminded me of my own deficient nose. Hers had led her unerringly to the dead meat.

I could only sypathesize with Larry McMurtry's fictional Indian, Magic Shoes the Kickapoo. How he lusted for the Eagle's Eye -- as he called the white man's telescope.

I envied the bear's nose. Maybe it's time to get a dog.