Dog's Water

looking out for our canine neighbours

A ways down the lane and around the corner is a small corner store, one of many on this alley and others like it. The kind of shops that don’t carry everything, but usually have anything you really need. There are food staples—rice, pulses, spices, instant noodles (of course), fresh bags of milk dropped off each morning, eggs, often vegetables. Pretty much anything you might need in a pinch. Usually a smattering of basic cleaning supplies, too. Children come to choose candy from a jar and parents buy what they need for dinner, and if I don’t want to do a proper shop but need a kilo of flour or a couple bulbs of garlic, I run downstairs and there are several little stores mere steps away.

This particular corner store is not one of my regulars; there are others much closer, while this one is nearly all the way to the small supermarket so if I’m walking that far, that tends to be where I go, with the result being that I don’t really shop there.

I do walk past it almost every day, though. A couple run it, and I usually see the woman there. Once when I asked for change after a taxi driver claimed to have none, she told me quite firmly that I ought to know he was taking me for a ride metaphorically as well: “Of course he has change, he is required to by law.” She saw that I had no desire to argue it with him, though, and was kind enough to break the bill for me anyway.

But I digress. The reason I am on a nodding-and-smiling acquaintance with this woman is because she loves dogs. There are many people at small stores like this who unofficially adopt local neighbourhood dogs, feeding and looking out for them. Many shopkeepers live above or alongside their shops, but she does not seem to; instead I’ve seen her arrive on the back of a motorbike, carrying a covered pot with her. If the orderly canine group that were eagerly awaiting her are any indication, it was full of good things to eat.

Recently a printed Dog’s Water sign went up (in both Nepali¹ and English) above the water container outside the store, but instead of it being at human eye level, it is just above the bowl at doggo level, and for some reason I find that little touch adorable; every time I see it I smile. Some days, that’s more than once, but it never loses its charm. The dogs lounge in front of or around the shop and they’re safe and fed and can quench their thirst: this woman’s daily kindness and care is, to me, part of what makes a real neighbourhood, and we’re all the better for it.

1. In Nepali, it actually says “Dog’s drinking water” which is an important detail!