the best dog that ever lived

During her short 10 months of life, Chini brought so much joy to all of us who knew her. Any dog we ever take into our home again will have much to live up to. She passed away on Monday, the 15th, from acute pancreatitis (http://www.vetinfo.com/dencyclopedia/depancrea.html). Fortunately, it was a quick disease and even quicker death, which brought little suffering to our Chini-Bear. It only took 4 days to take its toll on her little body.
Many of our friends in the Capital came by or called to see how we were doing in the last few days while her condition was so critical. We love that they recognize what she meant to us. And Chini was gracious even on the day of her death. When J&S, our supervisors, came by to see how we were holding up, Chini rose, with near-exhaustion, to greet "her" visitors. Her hospitality and friendliness are just a few of things we're going to miss from the best dog that ever lived.

With no monkeys around, bugs became her favorite prey here in the Capital. Not only would she pounce, paw, and kill the bugs, but she would literally take them in her mouth, shake them, and then roll around on their dead bodies. Is that dedication to the job or what?


On Christmas, one of our "nephews" taught her how to open her own presents!


People often commented on Rani Chini (Queen Chini) because she loved to snuggle in pretty pillows. I think more than anything, I'll miss snuggling with her. Believe me, you've never seen a dog snuggle with humans the way sweet Chini did.

I realize to some this may seem a bit cheesy to be so heartbroken over a dog, but believe me, she was way more than a dog to us. She was nothing short of family, and we miss her. A lot.

happy Christmas!

As they say here, Happy Christmas!!

yet another Chini blog

Chini had her spaying surgery last Saturday and that morning was one of the saddest of my life! Immediately after the surgery was over, the vet called for us to come pick her up. I realize that in the States, they keep the dogs for at least a couple of hours if not overnight. Husband left to go get her, and called me before reaching the house. "I'm calling just to warn you. Chini isn't in pain, because she's so doped up on pain killers. But the meds are causing her to hallucinate and she's crying, and will cry for the next 2-3 hours." I could hear her over the phone, and I started crying before we hung up the phone. I composed myself, but as soon as they came home, I started crying again because Chini looked so pitiful. She wasn't even conscious, but was just howling with her tongue hanging out sideways and kicking. We tried putting her in her crate, but she flipped out, turning circles, and shaking the crate, so we spread out a couple of towels on the floor and just sat with her for two hours.

The funny thing was, there is one neighborhood dog that is Chini's friend. (picture on right) He sits by our door and front gate a lot, and I guess because he doesn't have his own pack, he's nice to her. Well we had the screen doors open while Chini was howling and crying, and this dog heard her calls of distress. He came to the door and started barking, and Chini got real quiet. Every time he would bark, she would relax, and I thought that was so sweet. I wonder what he said to her.


Finally Chini would try to stand, but was falling over. (picture on left) Then finally the hallucinations stopped, and the drug-induced stupor began. She went to her crate and slept, but every now and then she would sit up then fall back to sleep sitting up. (picture of that on the right)

She's doing much better now. I was worried her personality would be a little different, but she's back to her cute and curious ways. She's even jumping on furniture and wagging her tail again. I should say that yes, I realize I'm quite over the top for blogging about my dog.

the family is coming!

Husband's family is coming! We're actually leaving for the airport in 20 minutes to pick them. I made an embarrassing elaborate Welcome sign, and we are very excited. I actually had to blog to keep myself occupied.

We've been working on getting the house ready for them. Between ceiling fans, washing machine, computers, and our kitchen sink, we had a lot break in the past two weeks! Here's a picture (sideways...sorry) of the sink repair man. Interesting position to work in, but hey, got the job done!
I've been cooking up a storm today, and at the last minute I decided to bake them a Welcome cake. I have some leftover cake mixes, and thought, why not, that's easy. Of course I had to improvise quite a lot, and so easy became weird looking. First, I don't have a 9x13" pan. So the cake was made in one square pan and one hexagonal pan. So the layers look goofy. Second, the oven is too small for both of those pans to lay side by side, so one was leaning on top of the other in the oven, and of course baked uneven. And finally, my cake writing skills need some improvement. At least they'll have jet lag and maybe won't think this looks weird...or maybe not.
And finally, if that doesn't look sweet enough, here's a picture to leave you with. Since I won't be able to blog a lot in the coming 10 days, this picture is a great one to keep coming back to. She's such a girly girl, isn't she?
There may be some Very Special Guest Bloggers coming up soon...if I can convince them. :)

Chini Houdini

Husband has done a fantastic job training our dog. She is so obedient that our landlord told us she was going to send her daughter over to husband for him to train. One of her favorite things to do is go on a walk, so when we say to her, "Chini, you want to go on a walk?" she starts flipping out, jumping all over the place and yelping in excitement. We'll then say, "Get your leash!" and after a few more yelps, she will get her leash (hanging on the wall) and bring it to us.

This morning, I left Chini in her crate and took a walk by myself with the intention to come back early to join husband and Chini for a walk. When I entered the house, I saw that Chini was sitting on the floor, with the leash at her paws. I asked husband, who was still in the bedroom, if he had let Chini out of her crate, and he looked puzzled and said no. After me several times asking, "You're kidding, right?" we realized that little Chini had found a way to get out of her crate and was waiting for me to return so she could entice me to go on a walk with her.

I always knew she was a super dog. I didn't realize she was also an escape artist.

take a bite out of monkeys

You may have noticed that we haven't had many posts about monkeys in a long time. The main reason for this is Chini, our super monkey crime fighting dog. Here is our Super Dog by day, relaxing before her moments of monkey madness. But don't let her peaceful facade fool you. She has learned early on the dangers of the primate, and thinks constantly of how she can fight them off. In what must be one of the many differences between Chini and dogs raised in the States, all we have to say is, "Go get 'em, Chini!" and she darts up to the roof barking and growling, ready to fight off not cats, not strangers, but monkeys.

Today for some reason, the gray monkeys have been going nuts on our roof, and I had the chance to catch Chini in action. Here are some pics of her in between her manic running from one side of the roof to the next.

And here are a few pics of Chini training for her role as Super Dog...

meet chini!

Meet the new addition to our household! Since she's all white, we named her Chini (means sugar in the language we are learning. It also means a Chinese person, but most everyone knows we mean the sugar definition :) She's an Asian pomeranian. I say Asian, because all the poms we've seen here look like a slightly larger version of the pomeranians I've seen in America. And they're also a bit less furry. (Chini rhymes with genie)

So in naming her, we found a few names we really liked. The problem was, they were human names, and after talking to Priya, I found out that dogs are considered low animals and naming them after a human is an insult to any human who has that name. Or even any fictional character. Yeah. That one really got me too. When we were looking at male names, I liked the name Raj, and asked Priya, to which she laughed and asked me, "What would SRK think?" See, SRK is a very famous actor here, and in a lot of his movies, he has the name Raj. Wow lots of rules and customs! *As a side note, seeing as SRK is my fave actor here, I wouldn't want to offend him anyway. That may kill my chances of being in one of his movies! And as my chances are pretty much slim to none, I can't afford to lose any.

Well anyway, here she is, our little bundle of energy. :)














Snuggling at husbands' feet

Right: We were trying to get how funny she looks hopping around after the ball. This is the best we got.