Gah. I just wanted all three of them facing the same direction. But this is sufficient for comparative purposes, I think. Taiwanese tugou/Formosan [mountain] dogs are frequently listed as “Basenji” mixes when they make their way Stateside. While this goes some way in generalizing for temperament, I think it does a disservice to both the Basenji and the tugou to mislabel them in this manner.
When I am able to identify a large enough population of Basenjis in Taiwan (my current count: 0) to account for the disproportionate number of “Basenji mixes” from Taiwan that end up in rescue, I’ll let you know. Until then, I’d rather let the tugou be a tugou… complete unto its own terms.
We already had two strikes this month in our attempts to attend the annual Shiba Inu Picnic (missed due to lost leash) and the NorCal Basenji Fun Day (afternoon events canceled due to extreme heat). I didn’t say much in advance of this year’s Taiwan tugou / Formosan Mountain Dog meetup for fear of jinxing things. However, last Saturday, we were finally able to catch one of the events we had planned for the month — Formosa-pa-looza 2012, organized by the same people who put together last year‘s event.
As usual when we attend meetups, I trotted the Bows around the other side of the park to expend a bit of energy before throwing them into the crowd. Far from the rendezvous point, we encountered a dog that looked like he belonged to the group. Turns out that this beautiful brindle, Cooler, had not come specifically for the meetup, but he was a Taiwan dog rescue.
Just goes to show how prevalent they are around here! You’ll run into these Formosans without even trying.
Then as we looped around the other side of the park, we ran into another regular, Asu, whom we know to be a Taiwan rescue. I had mentioned the meetup to Asu’s people earlier, so they knew to be there that day. But apparently Asu was much more eager to playplayplay, and it was harder to do that in the main crowd where sandwiches were distracting would-be wrestling partners.
So they sought out more open turf, and Asu lost no time making connections.
Having been forewarned that food was going to be present, I lingered for a while and thought to give the main party a chance to finish up their lunches before we wandered over. I know that Bowdu can be unpredictable in the presence of high value [human] food, to say nothing of all the other personality quirks that come with “primitive” breeds in general. Indeed, once we got to the main group, we witnessed some posturing and canine body language that looked very familiar…
Many (though certainly not all) of these Taiwan dog rescues had a stint of life on the streets. No doubt that scrounging, defending one’s space, and resource guarding become deeply ingrained habits that are not easily forgotten.
Or maybe they’re just dogs being dogs.
At least we didn’t encounter any real bad behavior, even when the treats came out.
Anyway, it was a pretty sizeable crowd, but widely dispersed, with a broader mix of dogs in comparison to last year’s “typier” representatives. There was plenty of action all around, and I’m happy to have briefly shared the company of some interesting dogs.
Bambi (L), Laser (R)
We recognized this little lady from last year from her distinctive red harness and the shape of her flying ear tips.
Annie
Bowdu was also inspired to go off on a Shiba 500 that lasted about six laps…
… before he finally collapsed in the shade, too tuckered out to follow along during the pack walk.
So we broke off from the rest of the pack and headed home.
My aunt in Taiwan is one of the few true dog lovers in my (very, very large) family. She keeps her pets very differently from what I’ve grown accustomed to. In her view, dogs are strictly outdoors pets, though her purebred Maltese and Pomeranians are occasionally permitted to flounce about indoors. Her favorite Maltese often gets to ride in her purse on errands about town, but the rest stay home to keep guard and earn their keep. Most of her dogs don’t get daily walks, though they get lots of time to freely roam the garden, a fairly spacious plot.
Occasionally she’ll chance upon a high-energy dog that obviously needs extra exercise. But mostly, auntie’s dogs bend to her way of life, which involves a lot of busywork and activity about the house.
She values her Taiwan dogs, her tugou, as household guardians. Thus, she often favors the darker-colored ones that others will ditch, since black dogs with white feet, in particular, are considered extremely inauspicious. To her, it makes no difference in terms of functionality, companionship, and loyalty.
Lucky, picture below, is currently her oldest dog. He was about nine years old in the summer of 2009 when these pictures were taken. His head makes me think he’s part Akita, but his ancestry remains as mysterious as the morning fog draped over the local mountains.
And the beagle below was her latest addition at the time. He was found seeking refuge in the yard with an injury to the face and signs of neglect all over his body. Auntie got him patched up, and since he didn’t show any inclination of leaving, she decided to let him stay.
I do look forward to the trip back to that village — those mountains, those people, those dogs… though things may change faster than I can document them.
I suppose I’m on a posting binge this week after having been out of town for a stint. Anyway, I’m backtracking to Monday of this week, which was an excellent day for Taiwan dog-spotting. Not only did we see Ah Su (though they were on the other side of the bridge, so we didn’t get a chance to say hi), we also ran into this lovely little Shiba mix, Holly.
I joke about being a “dog stalker” with my camera, but it’s really only been the last year since I got this DSLR that I started seriously documenting the array of charming canines with whom we share our Bay Area dog parks. Yet, long before I’d started playing pupparazzi, Bowdu and I had met Holly when she was a mangy new rescue fresh off the boat (or plane, as it were) from Taiwan. I remembered her because I had taken pictures of her playing with Bowdu almost three years ago. And though I didn’t do anything with that footage and am not even sure I know where I stowed the digital files, the very act of photo documentation was enough to impress her story in my memory.
There’s no way that Bowdu could have remembered interacting with her, but he did seem to take rather naturally to her, as he does with a few dogs. She is mostly a Shiba with just a hint of something else that’s downright difficult to describe. We’ll call it her unique mystique.
As our red and white gang was hanging out on the crest of the small slope, I noticed another very interesting shape romping across the glade…
A Dutch Shepherd mix? The first Kai Ken I would get to meet in person?
Nope, rather a historical remnant of those colonial regimes. He was a fairly typey example of a Formosan mountain dog.
I guess I was too caught up in the spontaneity of the meeting to get the brindle tugou’s name.
Moments like this, I’m happy to have my camera on hand. These photos make each random encounter into a real event that I’ll be able to relive and recount years down the line.
I take pictures of other people’s dogs and post them on this humble little blog because I want to celebrate all the different ways that our social lives converge, are enriched, and are rendered surprising and marvelous, thanks to our pets. To that end, I vow to only speak well of dogs that are not my own, the dogs I file under Sightings. It’s the least I can do to express my appreciation for their involuntary participation in my cumulative canine education.
When I went back to my parents’ house last month, I was able to retrieve some old pictures I had accumulated over the years. Some new-old images will crop up on occasion, mainly to help jar loose some memories and possibly some stories.
Here’s one I was quite grateful to have in the archives — an old shot of my grandpa’s dog, Ah Bai.
15 August 2004
I’m severely disappointed in myself that I didn’t get more pictures of her, let alone pictures of Ah Bai and my grandparents together. But at least I had managed to get several shots of her head after all. In the above, I was struck by how distinctively “primitive” she really did appear, as if I had any question that the Formosan or Taiwan Native Dog belongs in the pariah dog grouping. Ah Bai was a little too squat and and had far too much white to be considered a “true” Formosan, but she was a tugou through and through, and my grandpa’s loving companion until her death.
Around this time of year, my thoughts often drift Taiwan-wards, even moreso than usual, because it was about mid-August when I first returned, and then early September of that same summer when my grandmother passed away. I had been too busy trying to get myself established in the city that I hadn’t yet had a chance to trek down to the country to see her one last time — and then one phone call later, she was gone.
In those somber days leading up to her funeral, we folded a lot of paper money and lotus flowers, and I had a chance to hang out with my paternal cousins and aunts and uncles for the first time in years.
11 September 2003
13 September 2003
Ah Bai lingered close and watched, processing the hubbub and the changes in her own sensitive, noble way. She was already appropriately robed in white and her own “burlap” hood, as the rest of us would be, for white is the color of death, and the various burlap garments (piled next to Ah Bai) signify our relationship to the deceased in Buddhist funerary rites.
Cousins on the day of the funeral
Few of my shots were framed with the intention of capturing Ah Bai, but she was constantly there, and was surely a comforting presence after we all left. As one of my cousins said, it was the only way we could bear to leave grandpa alone after the ceremony was over and we all had to resume our respective workdays. It eased our conscience to know that even though grandma was gone, his home was not empty. Grandpa’s dog would share his private grief, and they would continue to have each other in the healing days to come.
Aside from a couple Bows who infiltrated the above shot, these are all rescued Taiwanese dogs that have managed to find forever homes across the Pacific Ocean, here in California. Given our geographic proximity to Asia and the abundance of direct flights from TPE to SFO, this is one of several North American hotspots for Taiwanese rescue dogs. Several local organizations, including Rocket Dog Rescue, Doggie Protective Services, Asians for Humans, Animals, and Nature, and others have networked with Taiwanese rescue groups in order to find good homes for these unique dogs.
Annie
Logan
Lady is shiny
These athletic, compact dogs are often billed as “Basenji mixes” on this side, which is not accurate, but serves as the best approximation for their primitive look and slightly “feral” temperament. That is, indigenous Formosans were originally bred to be independent-minded and to hunt in forested mountain terrain. And like the term basenji just means “bush thing,” and doesn’t actually translate as a purebred, AKC-registrable dog in its native lands, neither does tugou refer to a distinguished breed in Chinese, and certainly not a purebred in the contemporary sense of the word. A tugou is an “[native to the] earth dog,” so this one is as much a tugou as any of the all-black specimens above…
Seven
… as well as these.
International dog adoptions are sometimes criticized from a protectionist standpoint, out of concern for local shelter reform, etc. I can appreciate that it’s a complicated issue, but in my world, the international is already home. About one in every five residents in my county is a foreign-born immigrant, myself included, and this ratio is true of many places where I’ve lived and felt most at home. In a typical day, I can pick up ten random items around my house and find that they’re made in at least five different countries. I might make a meal of Italian sausages while drinking a German beer and listening to French pop on a Japanese radio. While I can and do make conscious decisions to contribute to my immediate community, it doesn’t take much for the local to meld into the transnational, at least not from where I stand.
Thus, it seems to me that opening one’s home and giving love to a dog who happens to come from overseas is NOT going to upset the cosmic balance all that much in the long run. As the result of someone’s compassion, even imported rescues do their part to seed the very idea of a more humane world, wherever one may inhabit it.
They do their part to teach Bowdu how to mooch politely.
Here’s a quick preview of an entry I’m throwing together about a recent NorCal Formosan / Taiwan dog meetup that I attended last weekend. I got to chat a bit with the woman who rescued this beautiful brindle tugou, now named Jolie.
18 June 2011
She played really well with all the dogs she met, including this Boston terrier, Walter.
C’mon Walter, gimme just a tail o’ that tugtoy to gnaw on, sport
Waaaitt! Come baaaack!
Sorry, I was too absorbed in the cute to come up with a punchline…
So Bowdu wasn’t always a jerkface around other dogs. However, I can count the number of times he’s really played well with another dog in the single digits.
Photo taken 18 September 2005
The wild child in this photo is 妞妞 (pronounced “Nyo-nyo”), my aunt’s four-month-old tugou puppy. Bowdu was about eight months old in this picture. We’d gone down south to central Taiwan to visit family. Not only was it the first time that Bowdu was able to play with another puppy, it was also the first time that he had gotten an opportunity to roll around in more than four square feet of grass.
Nyo-nyo was extremely fearful at first, hunkering down into a urinating ball and screaming if Bowdu so much as looked in her direction. She pinned those big, floppy ears back so hard and so fast that they kept flipping inside out, but she still wanted to get closer. She was curious. She wanted to interact.
And that’s why my aunt saw potential in her, I guess. Nyo-nyo had been dumped as a young puppy, owing to local superstition that regards black dogs with white-tipped paws as cursed creatures — dogs that appeared to have waded through the rivers of Hell (white being the color of death in local religious iconography). My aunt is as rural as they come, born and raised in that little Taiwanese village. But if there was one thing that set her apart, it was her refusal to buy into that strain of folk nonsense; all of her rescued street dogs bore those “unlucky” markings.
Once Bowdu and Nyo-nyo got over their initial shyness, they played like a perfectly matched pair.
For once, Bowdu was on the receiving end of puppy teeth!
We could have let them go all afternoon. But auntie came to collect Nyo-nyo and return her to her crate after barely forty-five minutes worth of playing. As much as I pleaded, she wouldn’t let her back out for another extended play session for the rest of the weekend.
Auntie had plans for Nyo-nyo. That is, she intended to exploit the tugou’s natural tendency towards territoriality, and raise her to guard the house. If she was going to do her pre-ordained job effectively, it would not do for her to get too friendly with strange dogs.
So that little friendship ended before it ever really got anywhere.
When we returned months later for Chinese New Year 2006, Nyo-nyo was no longer interested in playing with Bowdu.
PREFACE: I get a lot of hits on this post and queries from people who want to get in touch with TUAPA. That’s great! I’m not currently located near the TUAPA shelters though, nor am I an official member of TUAPA operations. If you are interested in Taiwan dog adoptions in general, please check out this post. You will also fare better directing inquiries to the organizations; links are embedded throughout my articles.
Taichung Universal Animal Protection Association (TUAPA) is a rescue organization located in Taichung, central Taiwan. Established in 1994, they are a recognized non-profit, currently headed by eight staff members, one vet, and scores of volunteers. They have their own facilities to house approximately 1000 dogs and some cats.
That’s a lot of dogs and cats all together in one place. Aside from a few high profile organizations, I don’t think most rescues in the United States dare to assume responsibility for so many animals at once. And with a greater number of rescue organizations spread across the US, luckily most don’t have to.
Unfortunately in Taiwan, the number of rescue organizations relative to the number of stray, abandoned, and needy dogs is totally insufficient. So Taiwanese animal rescue organizations face certain challenges that are a bit different from what you would find in the United States.
Here are a couple videos that offer a sense of what TUAPA’s facilities are like. The text and some dialogue is in Chinese, but the main volunteer featured in these two clips is a Scottish expatriate who has dedicated much of her time to the care of these animals (she speaks in English in the video). Just letting the dogs out for a run takes quite a bit of work!
This one has English subtitles:
I first heard about TUAPA from a neighboring rescue organization, Taichung PAWS founded by an alliance of Taiwanese and expatriate volunteers. This group also works with the Taipei-based Animals Taiwan, with whom I got my first experience volunteering for a rescue. More on that some other time.
When the Doggy Daddy and I moved back to the United States and were looking at adopting a rescue Shiba before we got Bowpi, I learned that my local Shiba rescue often helps TUAPA rehome Shiba Inu from Taiwan. Because of our proximity to the Pacific region and because the popularity of certain breeds in Taiwan means that many inevitably end up in rescue on that side of the ocean as well, TUAPA has made connections with rescues here.
They can compete with all the other purebreds and mutts needing homes in Taiwan, or they can be brought to California (and elsewhere) for a better, almost certain chance at adoption.
One version of anti-rescue vitriol that I often see copied and posted to places like Craigslist charges that American rescue groups import dogs, specifically puppies, from places like Taiwan because rescues need a constant supply of cute, adoptable puppies to boost their image and keep funding their operations. The allegation is that this is a gross mismanagement of resources, and further proof that animal rescue operates on shady, irresponsible economic models.
Frankly, that’s a lot of misinformed, malicious crap.
It’s true that Taiwanese animal rescues frequently reach out to international animal welfare groups for assistance. This is partly an extension of the demographics of animal rescue in Taiwan; a lot of expatriates take part, and so they naturally get the word out to those in their home countries. And many international rescues, motivated by the gravity of the situation in Taiwan, willingly assist purebred and mixed breed dogs alike. The fact of the matter is that there are not enough suitable homes on this island of 23 million people for anywhere from 170,000 (official statistics) to 300,000 (best estimates) stray dogs.
One might respond that there’s a shortage of suitable homes for the vast number of homeless dogs and cats the world over, including, most likely, right in your own town. Sadly, this is true and will be true for longer than I can imagine. And so to that, I say YES, by all means, consider adopting locally first. Absolutely.
But if you hear of a needy dog who comes from elsewhere, like Taiwan, and if their story moves you enough to reach out and commit to adopting that particular dog from faraway — and the rescue is willing to help the dog find its way to you — there is no shame in long-distance dog adoption. When it comes to animal rescues and dogs in particular, it’s so often about the heart, about squishy things like emotions and empathy and compassion, and there’s no need to cheapen those very real motivations with talk of rationality, efficiency, or “judicious appropriation of resources” when that immediate impulse to do good is already beyond value.
One note on the economics of international dog adoption, concerning airfare. Like many other modern, international hubs, there is a lot of air traffic coming in and out of Taiwan. This is particularly true amongst the business, student, and expatriate populations who call the island home. These are the types of people that Taiwanese rescues rely on to help export their dogs, as it’s much easier and more cost efficient to send along a dog as extra cargo when there are already human passengers to sponsor the flight. It’s rare that single adoptive dogs are directly shipped as international cargo, as that would be a significant expenditure and a bigger burden on operation costs. But if several dogs can hitch a ride with someone who would already be taking the flight anyway, the extra baggage literally amounts to the weight of the crated dogs, as the rescue group will arrange everything before and after the flight, including the overage charges (some airlines even offer discounts for rescue groups), pick-up, and drop-off.
This was meant to be a short post. Woops. Anyway, there will be more.
There are few true dog lovers in my family. My Grandpa was one.
I hadn’t really known him while I was growing up in the States, but when I moved back to Taiwan for a few years and got a chance to see him more frequently, I was deeply impressed by his devotion to his tugou bitch named Ah Bai.
Photo taken 8 February 2005
I don’t have a better picture of the two at the moment. But I remember exactly what preceded this shot. Grandpa had gotten revved up playing tug-of-war with that dirty old rag in his hands. He and Ah Bai were twirling around the room making ferocious noises at each other. She was an athletic, bouncy little dog, and I’d never seen my 70-year-old Grandpa so animated before. Then Ah Bai lunged and overshot her mark, catching Grandpa on the nose. The mood changed in a snap as he yelled and swatted reflexively at Ah Bai with the towel. All the aunties and cousins in the room began scolding Ah Bai as Grandpa eased himself onto the stool and massaged his face.
As it turned out, it was just a superficial scratch. Grandpa had forgiven her by the time I took the photo. But her posture captured here, as it did at the moment immediately following the incident, demonstrated just how sorry she was to have crossed the line and hurt Grandpa.
Ah Bai’s sensitivity and restraint became more evident when I witnessed her potential to really lash out violently, when she saw fit. Ah Bai was one fiercely devoted little bitch. The above picture was taken before we got Bowdu, when she could still stand to be in the same room as me. About eight months later, when Bowdu was also about that old, I brought him along to celebrate mid-Autumn Moon Festival with my family. Ah Bai did not appreciate the additional canine visitor at all. I am kin, so I must be tolerated, but HE was mincemeat, as far as she was concerned. She went after him so many times, clearly with intent to render him GONE, that Grandpa finally got out an old piece of rope and tied her up, while I kept Bowdu leashed at my side.
I could sense the reluctance in Grandpa’s movements. It was obvious that the rope was seldom used since it had taken him some time to locate it. But it was necessary to keep them physically separated, though the rope couldn’t stop her from staring daggers at Bowdu. She’d been mildly curious about my presence before, accepted because I was clearly part of the human pack — but from that day onward, my tenuous friendship with Ah Bai was effectively nullified.
Under normal circumstances, Ah Bai was queen of her territory. Grandpa didn’t believe in keeping dogs crated or chained up, and Ah Bai had a doggy door with constant access to the outdoors. The only “unnatural” restriction imposed on her mobility was that she had been spayed, with the deliberate intent to eliminate her desire to roam. With all this freedom, she never had the need or want to leave the home she loved. Even when Grandpa left the house and couldn’t take her on errands, she always knew to wait patiently and stand guard. And many a time, Grandpa would turn down evening family outings so he could stay home and just be with Ah Bai.
When the Doggy Daddy and I were preparing to leave Taiwan, my parents suggested that we give Bowdu to Grandpa instead of moving him overseas. I have no doubt of my Grandpa’s dog-rearing capabilities, but given what I saw, I’m sure that Bowdu would have been run off the property by Ah Bai the very first night, to live out a short and miserable life as yet another roaming village dog before succumbing to traffic or disease. Leaving Bowdu in Taiwan with Grandpa was out of the question. My parents resented our “extravagant” and “irresponsible” decision for a long time to come. Grandpa, however, seemed to prefer being a single-dog man.
I last returned to Taiwan to see my Grandpa two summers ago. As usual, he picked me up from the bus station on his motorbike, welcomed me with minimal to-do, and brought me back home. I immediately noticed when Ah Bai wasn’t there to greet us.
Apparently, she had contracted heartworm within the preceding year, and had died a wretched, unbefitting death.
My aunt told me that Grandpa cried and mourned over Ah Bai’s death in ways that he never did for Grandma, who had passed years ago after a long battle with cancer. It’s not fair and even a little cold to compare, I think, as Grandma’s prolonged struggle had allowed us a duration for psychological preparation. After her passing, Ah Bai came to occupy Grandpa’s heart so fully, why should her own have become infected and consumed from the inside out? It didn’t seem fair.
And it didn’t seem right that Grandpa should be alone in his old age, even if he was able to get by on his own, right up to the end.
Photo taken 13 June 2008
I asked Grandpa if he would consider adopting another dog (since I had just seen a litter of tugou puppies up the street). He shut me down pretty quickly on that score. “I don’t want another dog ever again. None will be as good as Ah Bai. She was the cutest, the most obedient. There won’t be another Ah Bai.”
Those were the most tender words I’d ever heard out of my typically laconic Grandpa. And so those are the words that stick as I try to recall his voice, his postures, his gestures and his life that I only got to know for such a short time.
Earlier this week, my grandfather in Taiwan had a stroke that put him in a coma. Yesterday morning, I was informed that he had passed away without ever regaining consciousness.
Have a smooth journey into the Beyond, Grandpa. May you, Grandma, and Ah Bai meet again.
