We heard about another KyiApso Puppy in a village on the other side of Mt. Kailash. We arrived at the village just as a visiting lama, or priest, was departing. The villagers were decked out in their "Sunday best," wearing silk prayer scarves and their fanciest outfits. We were taken to a home with a fenced-in yard. Instead of a KyiApso, we found an adorable mastiff puppy, who wanted to play. Although he was almost irresistible, our mission was to find KyiApso pups, and we reluctantly decided to leave him behind. That day, we stopped at 29 tents, none of which had KyiApso pups.

A small village lies at the foot of Mt. Kailash, with two monasteries, a campsite filled with pilgrims' tents, entrepreneurs selling tsampa and crackers to pilgrims, a single rickety pool table balanced precariously beside a stream, and a motel-like building for non-Tibetans. We stayed there the first night, along with some German trekkers who had traveled on a bus from Nepal, and who planned to walk around the mountain. We decided against having the cook make us dinner after we saw his assistant toting a blood-filled bucket containing a goat's head into the cooking area.

Our next stop was the monastery where Daniel had found my American KyiApso's grandfather four years earlier. The dog was still there, chained to the rock wall, fiercely guarding his monastery. We asked the monks if there were any puppies; they said, "Mindu!"

There were plenty of dogs in the village, but no KyiApsos besides the grizzled grandfather. Most of the dogs we saw were black, with very smooth coats and tails. None came close to looking like a KyiApso, with its dropped ears, thick coat, hairy face and beard, and fully curled, plumed tail. We went from tent to tent, asking if anyone had seen such a dog, all with no luck -- "Mindu."

We headed toward Lake Mamayuntso the next day, stopping at every tent along the way. Dogs (mostly mastiffs) would start barking, women would stop milking, children would stop playing, entire families would stop what they were doing to run up to us. The answer to our question would always be the same, "Mindu." Stupified at our bad luck, we came to appreciate little Kang more each day.

Our search finally took us to Lake Mamayuntso itself, a vast, deep sparkling turquoise lake surrounded by distant mountains. A monastery built into a cliff overlooking the lake was deserted except for a goat living on the roof, and a very mean dog lurking below. We set up camp on the lake's shore and watched the sky explode in brilliant colors of orange, pink, red and gold as the sun set. A full, white moon beamed in the darkening sky. After our dinner of noodles, our drivers slept in their truck, as usual, and we tied the puppy to a duffel bag outside my tent. As we snuggled into our sleeping bags and drifted off to sleep, I heard a distant barking. The barking grew louder and louder, and Kang started to bark frantically. I peered outside the tent. The barking had stopped, and our camp was surrounded by fourteen black dogs. They looked hungry, even in the moonlight. I went outside and yelled, "Scram!" but they didn't move. I tried it in Tibetan, "Shoo!" No response. I picked up some rocks and hurled them at the pack. The dogs scattered and ran away. Fifteen minutes later, they were back, looking hungrily in our direction. I threw more rocks. This tiresome pattern continued for what seemed hours, until they finally tired and left for the night.

We continued hunting for KyiApsos over the next few days, with no luck. Lobsang worred about not having enough gasoline to get home, and we were forced to start our trip to Kathmandu.

When we reached Hor, I insisted on searching for the KyiApsos I was sure I had seen on our way out. As usual, the minute we stepped out of the truck we were surrounded by curious villagers, and I explained what we were looking for, showing them Kang, as well as Polaroids of my KyiApso back home. A little boy excitedly said that he knew of one. He took my hand and led me to an old man's yard, bordered by a 5' high rock wall. Inside, chained to a stake, an adult KyiApso glowered at us. He bared his teeth, and wouldn't let us near him. "Are there any puppies?" we asked. The boy took us to the next house, where a man brought out a tiny female KyiApso puppy. She was very small and malnourished. Daniel looked at me and asked, "What do you think?" I replied, "We'll take her!" We asked if there were any more, and took one last tour through the village.

We finally saw a tiny KyiApso puppy trying to run away from a little boy. Daniel and I chased the pup around a stone wall until it collapsed, panting from exhaustion. It was a black KyiApso female, even smaller than the first, weighing no more than four pounds. Daniel picked her up. "We'll take her, too," I told the little boy. We paid $12.00 for the pair. The puppies were tiny and malnourished, but they were KyiApsos. We named them Mindu and Tashi, after Tashi-Dalay, which means "greetings" in Tibetan. Daniel remarked that he thought that he had seen a light-colored adult KyiApso when we had passed through the town earlier; maybe she was the mother of these two. Before we could look for the mother, our drivers, worried about the light, and wary of the Chinese military, insisted that we leave Hor.

We drove all the way from Hor to Kathmandu with Mindu and Tashi on our laps in the back seat, and Kang on the floor in the front. Two days after finding the little ones, we noticed an oozing abscess on Mindu's back. Daniel worried that she might be fatally sick, but all we could do was to keep the sore clean, and make sure she ate. And the puppies ate! They gobbled up the yak meat we had brought from Lhasa. They wouldn't touch our cereal or noodles, but lapped up tsampa mixed with Lobsang's yak butter tea. Mindu's nose was perpetually covered with the white barley flour. Nomads subsist on the sticky paste, and since it's all they have, they feed it to their dogs, along with the few odd scraps from the occasionally slaughtered goat, yak or sheep. Tibetan dogs have to scavenge whatever else they eat, sometimes even hunting the tiny, guinea-pig like pica for food.

We were lucky in our passage from Tibet into Nepal; our pups were hardly noticed. The journey from Nepal back to the States was fairly uneventful, and we all made it back safely.

Mindu and Tashi live in Colorado now; Tashi had a litter of pups last year, and is expecting again in January. Mindu is expecting her first litter with Kang in January, 1997.

DQ

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Copyright 1997 Diana Quinn A Too Many Dogs Production All RIghts Reserved