Djengo was found in Thamel in July 2013 by Nicky and Naren – he was in pretty poor condition and had trouble keeping food down.
Djengo in Thamel
Nicky meets Djengo
Djengo is left at the shelter – to be picked up soon…
In October 2014, Naren drives 3,000 km from Goa to Kathmandu to pick up Djengo, and Djengo’s Journey starts.
October 2014 Naren arrives to get Djengo
Djengo rarin’ to go..
Djengo travelled like a pro. Not even a hint of vomiting. Naren gave him one anti travel sick pill every morning for a couple of days but then stopped as Djengo was getting too much antihistamine. Naren says Djengo eats so much! He’s been on a royal road diet of Aloo parathas and boiled eggs for breakfast, lots of cookies, and fried rice and loads of chappatis. The second day after they crossed the border in UP, Naren said Djengo ran away, across a busy highway with screeching cars swerving round him. He ran into open fields and disappeared for about 45 mins. Naren said he searched everywhere, then finally just went back to the car and waited …….. low and behold, Djengo came back and jumped back in himself! From then on Naren kept him on a leash, but he told me the second day ‘Djengo understands very well we have to go far and that he knows where he’s going’.
They got into a good routine together, stopping for lots of wees (evidently he does big frequent wees) and walks. They managed to find hotels to take a dog in the room, sometimes Naren paid double rate extra to persuade them on the condition that if Djengo barks or soils he will compensate and that Djengo will not go on the bed. Djengo slept fine under Naren’s bed. Only the last night he did a full wee on the room carpet early morning, which Naren said he quickly soaked up with a towel then left! In one hotel the room boy wanted to come in but Naren couldn’t open the door, only slightly, because at that time Djengo was snoring on the bed!
In UP (a dangerous state) they were robbed by a gang of off-duty cops, who took Naren’s car key and wallet and all the cash inside, then told him to get on a train with his dog back to Goa. He basically had to buy his car back off them.
One night they had stopped for a break and many people crowded around the car and took an interest in Djengo. They started asking questions…. “is this your dog?”….. Naren said “no, he’s a free dog” (a line from the film ‘Djengo’ about a freed slave, when they ask who is your owner the slave says “nobody, I’m a free man’. Then the people saw Naren’s car has a Maharastra number plate which is the home of Mumbai and Bollywood, so they asked “does the dog come from Mumbai?”….. Naren said “actually he’s from everywhere, he’s a movie star”….they actually believed this story and started snapping photos, they asked Naren “who are you, are you also a movie star?”…..he replied “no, I’m Djengo’s driver”.
Anyway on the last night as Djengo hopped down from the car thinking it was another hotel, he heard me, saw me and went absolutely loopy. What a welcome/reunion I got. It is very moving, how deep dogs are, and what they remember. So then followed quite a stressful couple of hours, Djengo was hyper excited and barking his big bass woof, and all our dogs (locked in the outhouse) sensed a newcomer and barking frenzy commenced as we desperately tried to calm and silence everyone due to our awful intolerant hateful neighbours. Our 15 yrs old head male dog Scoobie, fully arthritic but still mentally switched on, who stays in the house mostly on a mattress, looked completely pissed off at a new younger handsome addition to the pack. But one of the female puppies instantly took a liking to him.
Naren smelled much worse than Djengo but they have such a nice rapport going between them, Naren understands everything about Djengo now and how to communicate with him. Record timing and very smooth trip, the last day they covered 700km.