Rani is a semi-white rodatian in my neighbourhood. Few weeks
back she had 7 puppies, with her mate Raja, a black rodatian. Two of the puppies
have got her colour, one has got Raja’s colour and rest are mix of both of them.
I think they have got Rani’s eyes too.
Rani and some of her puppies...
The puppies were growing up very fast within the 4 ft gap of
her owner’s house and a factory boundary-wall at the dead end of the
road...nice place to bring up puppies; no vehicle-no pollution, nice shade in
this summer weather. The place is separated from the road by 4-5 bricks-high
wall, with debris piled up at both sides and protecting the puppies. We all
grew very curious and time to time peeked to see her puppies and she was so
proud.
After some days all the puppies started running and playing
within that place. I watched Rani feeding them every day in the evening by going
down there. But that 4-5 bricks-high wall was too high for them to climb out
and play on the road, even though there was a bag of debris, as high as half of
the wall, kept right on the base of the wall at their side...they simply did
not know how to use their feet and take the help of that bag to climb over the wall.
One evening I heard a lot of noise, curious I looked down. I
saw Rani standing at the age of the road and looking down the wall but not
going down to feed her puppies. The puppies were hungry and though I did not
know their language, I am sure they did not leave any stone unturned asking her
to come down and feed them. But all Rani did was sitting near the wall and
peeking over it. After a lot of crying out, few puppies, the slightly bigger
ones, tried to overcome the wall standing over the debris; yet, all they could
manage was to keep their face over the wall, cry some more with those sad
puppy-eyes and go down. After some 20-30 minutes, Rani went down there and fed
them all.
Next day the same thing happened. But one of the seven has
managed to stand up on the debris, worked really hard on its back legs and
managed to put its front two legs over the wall. After another 10 minutes of
doing ‘Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible-2’ kind of rock climbing it managed to
climb the wall and jumped on Rani like it has just won a gold medal in
Olympic. Rani fed it, played with it for long ignoring all other sad puppy
faces that were coming and going with lots of protesting cries over the horizon
of the wall. After drinking full, the puppy went to the wall, climbed with a
lot of passion and ‘Tom Cruise’ effort and managed to reach its place. Then out
of sheer joy of breaking the code, it started climbing the wall, coming to its
mother, playing for some time and going back to its brothers and sisters.
Within next few moments it found out the tricks of the trade...how to extract
support and jump from its back legs, where the height of the wall is
compromised, how quickly it can complete the entire sequence with ease etc.
Others kept trying but all in vain. After sometime, feeling that others were
unable to learn the same, Rani went in and fed the rest.
The same thing continued next few days and from one puppy, it
became three that had learned to clear the obstacle with ease within next 3
days. Rani kept on her training schedule and process without any change. By the
end of the week, every single puppy has learned to climb up the wall and go
back down using the most compromised area of the wall. They are now exploring
every inch of the neighbourhood under watchful eyes of Rani and Raja.
Simple and yet so effective method of teaching something so
valuable to her puppies, yet, Rani has never been to any school, B-school for
that matter of fact, she does not know about ‘positive reinforcement/ negative reinforcement’...all
she did was to teach her puppies to use their instinct and find the way of life.
The day I saw all of them coming out with ease; I bought them
a pack of ‘Parle-G’ as a prize...I am sure even ‘Shaktimaan’ would be proud of
them.
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