LURU Editor’s Pick: Bhanutej N’s “Show Dogs”

Cast a powerful enough lens on any subject, sharpen the focus, and eventually it reveals its essence—along with the realisation that the story of any one thing is intertwined with the story of everything. That’s my takeaway after reading Bhunutej N’s “Show Dogs,” published in Issue #3 of LURU.

Bhanutej trains a journalist’s searching gaze upon the Mudhol—a made-in-Karnataka sight hound—in his story about competitive dog shows. With his exacting eye and delicately wielded pen, Bhanutej unpicks an onion of a tale, zipping through the chequered history of how man made his so-called best friend. Through it, he reveals the dynamics driving the hound’s recent rise on the show circuit. He writes:  

The Mudhol Hound: at first glance, average-looking, even a little odd—but it grows on you. Its most arresting features are its awkward height, stilt-like limbs, bulky chest, small head, and extra-long tail. Its waist—corseted and Victorian—looks narrow enough to go through a bangle. The muzzle is a long, tapering bridge connecting the tip of the nose to sad, wide-set eyes. The Mudhols’ lankiness and complete absence of subcutaneous fat give them a generally starved appearance…

I was surprised at the sheer number of participants; it was telling of the popularity of dog shows in places I thought of as “small towns.”

How we got from the wandering wolf to the modern-day doggy, it turns out, is a rollicking run around the history of human strangeness, and the story of how our dreams and desires sculpt the creatures with whom we share our world:

Say the word “dog” to 10 different people, and they’ll visualise 10 different animals. Human meddling in the genetic code of the species has given us a range of creatures— from tiny, squealing handbag accessories to those that look like they read Russian novels to miniature horses that identify as lapdogs. There now exists a dog for every variety of dog owner. Made-in-India dogs are increasingly in demand. Among them, our homegrown Mudhol is making waves as an elite pet and possible war dog, to be deployed at borders and by forest officials.

Behind the rise and fall of this breed and others — the dog show industrial complex —is an entire global bureaucracy dedicated to setting the standards for canine conformity. If you’re going to play god, I suppose, it helps to have a rubric.

As part of his research, Bhanutej travelled all the way to Solapur with photographer Gaurav Krishna. There, the pair encountered a throng of competitors — part human, part canine — gathered from across the region.

And here’s where the story of the Mudhol Hound takes an unexpected turn. Gone are the galloping maharajas who reared homegrown hunting companions. In their place rises the city skyline. Untethered from land, and global in aspiration, the dog-owning classes now want apartment-friendly pooches. Inevitably, the local legacy has begun to wither.

Incredibly, ironically, owing to a government-backed scheme, the future of local bloodlines — of selection, rearing, of determining purity — is in the hands of scheduled caste breeders.

The Mudhols, which are sight hounds, continue to shine in their job as guard dogs in the SPG, the BSF, and the Karnataka Forest Department. In April, it was widely reported that two Mudhol Hounds guarding the Chandrakala State Forests in Shivamogga’s Shikaripura thwarted a gang of sandalwood smugglers. Apparently, the two hounds have ensured a very low rate of theft ever since they were recruited three years ago. The Karnataka State Police, however, has found Mudhols unsuitable for police work, which involves sniffing out bombs, narcotics, and dead bodies. An officer on the condition of anonymity said, “Though it is not official, we are no longer recruiting Mudhol Hounds. We need scent hounds. The Belgian Shepherd dog suits us best.”

Still, the Mudhol remains at the threshold of being considered an elite in the dog world. Even its status as a thoroughbred remains an open question. The reason: the Fédération Cynologique Internationale (FCI), Belgium, the apex body governing canine classification, recognises 360 breeds from 101 member countries as distinct breeds; the Mudhol Hound is not one of them. In fact, the FCI does not recognise any Indian breeds.

You can read Bhanutej’s story, “Show Dogs,” in Issue #3 of LURU, themed ‘The Games We Play.” Each print issue of LURU takes a single theme and examines it through the kaleidoscope of plural storytelling. Issue #3 includes, among other things, new short fiction from Tanuja Vishwanath and Eshwari R, a comic retelling of game theory basics, an oral history of video games, and lots more.

This is an excerpt of a non-fiction feature from Issue #3 of LURU. Get your copy here.