Pups in Danger

Hunting at dusk, adults and pups trot across a floodplain during the Okavango Delta's September dry season. Youngsters do their best to follow the pack, but older dogs sometimes hide tired pups in the brush, safe from lions and return for them later.

The lives of these dogs is as messy as ours, the tidal coming and going of generations and other things. The pups play with each other. One of my friends saw a half dozen of yearlings playing in the dark. They chase each other in a tight circle around a bush. They jaw wrestled and played tug-of-war with each other over a piece of meat. The suddenly stopped as they've heard a lions roar from nearby and ran to hide away in the bushes. A few moments later when they get satisfied that the lion has passed away, they resume to their game.

During the game, one of the pups stopped to catch his breath for a moment as if calling for time out and then joined the game again. After the game they started dancing. Suddenly the pups stopped again as they were of a danger near them. One lion jumped out from nowhere and attacked one of the pups, the old dogs tried to save them from the beast but the lion was quite intelligent as it chased one of the pups, out of their reach.

All night, the pack searched for the lost pup, desperately. In the morning they found the lefts of the pup near their hideaway. The pack showed their grief as if they were humans. They circled the leavings for quite sometime and then left.

My friend, told me about the incident and said that it was a moment of grief for the pack when they saw its bones. He said that he forgot that these are animals. Now he says that these animals are not animals, they are humans but in another form.

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