The Not So Elusive Canis Via

"Snickers," the alpha male Canis Via of Northeast Golf Links

In less than one week, Karen, her father and I will be stalking jackals, leopards, tigers, sambhar, and gazelles while on safari in Ranthambore National Park.  Five weeks after that, I will be doing the same with my parents in Jim Corbett National Park.  Being the prepared photographer, I decided to develop and polish my wildlife photography skills by going on safari in Golf Links, my neighborhood.  Over the past few weeks, I've been photographing the non-elusive Canis Via.  Otherwise known as street dog, the Canis Via roam in abundance throughout the numerous parks, sidewalks, alleyways, and trash piles of Golf Links.  Below are some photographs I've taken while on safari.

This Mom and her pup lived in the park in front of our apartment for a couple weeks.  I have not seen them for about a week.

This looks like the Mom is about to kill her pup, but they were just play fighting one Saturday afternoon in the park.

This time the Pup was in control of the fight!

I would not like to get on her bad side!

These dogs are awesome!

After 10 minutes of play fighting, Mom needed her moment to Zen.  She takes a deep breath while her son eats a leaf.  I've seen this look on my Mom's face before!!!

The little guy decides to go off and play while Mom relaxes.

He enjoyed stalking me from the bushes.  He'd keep his eye on me and charge at me!  I had tiny wet paw prints all over my jacket!

Snickers, the only dog we've named, lives on the corner sidewalk in front of our apartment.  This dog is the Tony Soprano of street dogs.  He doesn't take crap from anyone,  doesn't move out of the way for anything, leads a pack of dogs, walks with a small limp on cold days, has crazy patches of hair from past fights, barks at speeding taxis, and always, always walks with his tail raised high.  What a tail!

Snickers showing his sweet side one Sunday morning.

This guys lives a few parks down from our park in Golf Links.  Here he lays in the middle of the street during sunset one day in November.

This guy lives by the park across the street in North East Golf Links.   Here, he heard a friend barking and came running through this hole in a brick wall.  Some street dogs have collars?

These two took a while to warm up to the camera.  When I walked into their park, they immediately stopped playing and came over to see who I was and what I was doing.

After a couple of minutes, they lost interest in me and started playing again.  I think this might be another Mother and son.

This guy perked his ears up when I walked by

This big rascal lives in southeast Golf Links.  The guards provide him with a winter jacket.  He walks like a walrus and is so sweet!

I was in awe when I saw this dog in center Golf Links.  I've never seen a dog with such cool eyes!

Snickers hanging out with the pup and his best friend in the doggy sweater.  Snickers' friend is really old and walks very gingerly.  He has a very low, coarse bark.   The two of them like to sleep next to each other on the sunny patches of the sidewalk.

There are many people who like to sit and eat in the parks around Golf Links.  This guy is eating some Roti that was thrown his way.  The street dogs are taken care of for the most part.  There are bowls around the neighborhood that people fill with water and food.

The small print on the sign says "friends of all security guards of Golf Links."  I think this is because the guards sleep at night.  If there is any suspicious activity around the neighborhood, the dogs bark and wake them up!

This guy doesn't live in our neighborhood, but we see him every time we walk to Khan Market.  He is resting in the median one busy afternoon.  One night in December, he was nestled in a pile of warm trash.  This dog is very sweet.  Many dogs become street dogs when their foreign owners abandon them.  According to this article in The Telegraph, Brits are the biggest culprits mainly because of their laws.

This little guy was outside of our hotel in Kasauli.