Kazi, The Panabaj Pup: A Story of Survival

He is unique, one of a kind – a miraculous survivor. His story begins in Panabaj, a Mayan village in highland Guatemala. Please help us help him have a happy ending to his amazing story.

Soon after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, hurricane force rains swept Guatemala – tropical storm Stan. In our remote lake side area, somewhere between 400 and 2000 Maya people – the poorest of the poor - were killed in one village as the result of a tremendous landslide. It went unnoticed back in the US, struggling with the aftermath of the devastation caused by Katrina.

Shortly after the storm, I found a survivor in Panabaj - a Pup. He emerged courageously from the mud and represents hundreds, thousands, of voices silenced by the Storm. He needs a home. Kazi is said to be beautiful – tiger stripped, incredibly intelligent in a special dog whisperer responsive way. He would have faithfully protected a humble Mayan wood gatherer all the days of his life - instead Kazi lives in the “modern world” and is a wonderful candidate for high-tech agility training. He lives to serve and obey – and also has a highly developed mind of his own.

Please, read his story, written for the younger audience when we thought he had a home. He was driven out of his new home by the resident Boss Dog. They both made it clear it would be a battle till death do us part. Kazi, though neutered at the appropriate age, backs down to no-one, man or dog. He responds totally to love and reason. Please, help us find him a safe and loving home….

KAZI, THE PANABAJ PUP AND JAZZ-DOG:
Oct 5, 2005. Jazz-Dog heard it. I heard nothing but the rain, heavier then any rainstorm in all my life. He stretched his golden, furry form to stand upright with his front paws on the window ledge in our tin roofed bedroom and whined urgently, insistently, through the night, telling me that something, something very frightening was happening. His chosen sentinel post was the peephole of a window that looked up onto Toliman, one of the silent and regal volcanoes that oversee daily life at Lake Atitlan, Guatemala.

In nearby Panabaj, a two month old tiger-striped pup heard the sound of something, something in the night. Huddled together with his mother, 2 brothers and the sister he loved to tease, he woke to find they were all soaking wet under the rusted piece of tin roofing that usually kept them dry during the rains. Next to them, the cornstalk house with rusty tin roof that sheltered their human family was pouring rain in on his two footed playmates – the woodcutter’s wide-eyed children.

During that day the Pup, with his mother and the other pups tagging along, had escorted his woodcutter up the mountain side to gather firewood to sell in the market to buy the corn that the woodcutters wife made into tortillas’ that filled their stomachs before they went to bed. That was his job - escorting and protecting the Two Footed One. Some people laughed to see such a small pup so determined to guard the life of a Two Footed One. That didn’t matter to him because he knew his job - and did it well. That day, it was raining then pouring, then in the night Hurricane Stan swept the hillsides violently and relentlessly. And then it came - at 1:30 in the pitch black night – the roar that turned Pup and his world upside down.

When Jazz woke me, he told me exactly what was happening yet due to our linguistic differences, I couldn’t understand the details. A wall of mud was pouring down from the top of Toliman Volcano. It went down Toliman to the left of us, sweeping through more than 30 houses, where families heard it coming and saved their lives by running up onto the mountain. It went down to the right of us roaring onto the sleeping village of Panabaj. In the middle, Jazz and I were safe and dry in our little house, preparing and listening, knowing that death was stalking the land.

Tiger-striped Pup – spinning in the flood – smacked by rocks and boulders, under the mud and on top again. Before light came, three young men gathered pieces of tin roofing to use them as a moveable pathway to crawl on over the mud, time after time, risking their own lives to pull women and babies, children and men, from the suffocating mud. Through the darkness they went out again and again to save yet another and another life.

They passed Pup by in the mud – sand grit closed his tiny eyes, his nose filled with slime, he struggled to breathe, his tiny puppy body lodged painfully on the branch of a tree, one of the few that withstood the deadly wall of mud. Days and nights came and went. Heroic dog survivors dug valiantly day after day after day to dig their Two Footed Ones out from deep beneath the mud. Some Faithful Dogs stood guard at the spot where their human friends, their families, had died crushed beneath fourteen feet of volcanic mud. They howled day after day in mournful anguish.

After the ravaging of the storm, dog packs roamed, hungry savage animals out of their minds in the muddy confusion. They were eating the dead, two footed and four. They attacked each other viciously. Some chased the Pup, hardly big enough to be a mouth-full. Somehow, he fought them off, escaping time after time. He found a gentle young female dog, confused and quiet in the chaos. They hid together near the small hospital that had withstood the slide.

That is where Pup found me. I was there with an architect friend, evaluating the condition of the hospital to see if it could be put to immediate use. Eerily, it stood in the middle of the drying mudflow, where all houses and humans were gone, many buried deep in the mud beneath our feet. Ghostly footprints were carved in the mud around us. White patches of lime had been spread about to lessen the smell of death. A rat sized figure moved towards me, hobbling pathetically over the still clingy mud. He came directly to my feet, sat down and looked me squarely in the eye, a picture of pure determination.

He followed us when we went into the hospital to check the damages. With great dignity the tiny pup took his place guarding the door, proud and erect, starved and filthy, steadfastly on-duty, protecting us - the Two Footed Ones. A sweetness combined with primordial wisdom was visible inside his absolute, unshakable, fortitude. His eyes carry that message even today.

I thought aloud, “no. no, no - I won’t take that filthy, disease ridden thing home to infect my beloved healthy Jazz-Dog.” The architect walked over to the noble Pup, picked him up, cuddled him on his shoulder and said “yes, yes, yes.”

I said – “if he wants to come with me he has to prove it.” The man who accompanied us in the aftermath of the slide had survived the horror of The Night. He ran to get a box, eager to pull one more living creature out of the death field. I talked to the gentle half grown female, still healthy and very shy - and wished I could take her home to Jazz. There was only room for one. Pup insistently tried to climb in the box. HE was going home with me. I still pray that her family found her.

When we got into the pickup truck I softened towards him. Feeling it would be too hard a ride for him in a box in the back of the truck. I wrapped him in a hospital towel and held his smelly being on my lap. As we drove by children walking forlornly through the mud field, Pup strained his tiny hairless body to see them. Were they HIS Two-Footed Ones?

Jazz-Dog, the ever loyal one, most excellent mouser of all time, known for killing large rats and possums with one efficient pounce, took one look at the vermin infested Pup and offered to end his misery then and there. We agreed that The Thing belonged to me. Jazz, look, don’t touch. I kept them safely separated until Pup looked enough like a dog to pass Jazz’s life and death decision. I gave Pup a small teddy bear. He cuddled it between his front paws each night as he went to sleep, waking up with his chin cradled on it. He chewed up everything else in the house, but his precious Teddy Bear to this day is fully intact.

From the moment he arrived, hairless and feeble Pup said HE was the boss of the house. All food was HIS. Jazz’s favorite place under the kitchen table was HIS. As soon as he could pull himself up onto the couch Jazz loved, Pup claimed it as HIS. And Jazz, ever dignified, noble and respecting of my choices, allowed it all. Pup ate my shoes and started on the live electric cords. Jazz dug up bones he had long ago buried in our back yard and brought them to Pup, presenting them to him with a mind-to-mind message, “Here, this is what you chew on.” After that, Pup never chewed another light cord. He chewed everything else, everything except electric cords - and claimed all bones to be HIS.

While still a small Pup, he showed us that he loved to learn, leaping his little tiger rump into the air to “Sit”, dutifully responding to “Lie Down” and showing eager willingness to deal with the temptations of Stay. He clearly has the desire and ability to become an accomplished Agility Dog.

Pup came to have a name –a Mayan word for LIFE - K’aslem. We brought him on the long boat ride across the lake time after time after time to the nearest Vet for skin healing baths, shots and vitamins. He was neutered in a clinic in the Mayan village of San Marcos. He became the Mascot for our Environmental Education-Youth Leadership program. The boys in our program had learned from the world around them that dogs, especially sick, skinny ones, were to be kicked, beaten, hit with machetes and even poisoned. Pup, now called KAZI - meaning both Life and the fearless Kamikazi Spiritual Warrior - changed all that.

Kazi, the Panabaj Pup, taught them that Dogs have Rights too. They have the Right to be vaccinated against nasty diseases; the Right to have clean food and water and share the life of their Two Footed Ones in a manner that dignifies them both. Kazi the Panabaj Pup taught them that spaying and neutering is the responsible way to take care of your dog so that thousands of unwanted pups do not have to die painfully by poison when the Health Department clears the streets of dog packs a couple times each year. And he taught us all that Love is real.

Then, I had to go away. We thought it was only for a month or two. I had no other choice. The boys were taught how to care for Jazz and Kazi, Ruler of the Roost. I did not, could not, return for six months. The boys did well. Jazz and Kazi were alive and rambunctious when I returned. But I could no longer care for two four footed friends– only Jazz could stay with me.

Where oh where for Kazi, the Panabaj Pup? He is now a very handsome young being, an adolescent taller than Jazz, with long elegant legs, dancing like a deer. He is sleek with a form and frame similar to a greyhound/whippet. His tiger striped coat causes Mayan people on the street in Guatemala to say, “oh what a beautiful dog.” He has a poignant sweetness that touches my heart. A tragic memory lives deep in his eyes, offsetting his fierce shark tooth resolve and delightful, whimsical and wise sense of humor. Play is his password. Food is his passion.

I have called and talked with everyone I know. No-one has room for the tiger stripped survivor of the famous Panabaj landslide. One day a friend told me about a dog that hopped on a boat and arrived on his land by the lake, and I asked “please, please, oh please, is there room for one more?” And he finally, thoughtfully, said – “YES”.

Together, Kazi the Panabaj Pup, my friend Selaine and I hopped on a boat. We brought him to that most special of places, with the hope he would have dog companions, responsible and caring humans, good food and freedom. Instead, he was greeted by a tough and growling Boss Dog, three times his size, who called his pack to drive the interloper off the island. Kazi valiantly took them all on. We pulled him back onto the boat just in time. So now here he is with me and Jazz-Dog. With all my heart I would love to say it is Happily-Ever-After. I want this remarkable creature to stay with us forever, but I have to leave Guatemala. Back in the U.S. there is nowhere I can keep two wonderful ubiquitous Mayan Mountain Dogs. One must go – the Beloved Kazi.

Please, help us find The Place for him. A special one-of-a- kind, “only dog in the family” type home where Kazi the Panabaj Pup will be loved, appreciated and given full freedom to love, adore and follow faithfully every footstep of the Two Footed One that saves his life.

To learn more about Kazi the Panabaj Pup please contact me: Email: loscimientosgt@yahoo.com,
US SKYPE telephone – 831 706-4203, Guatemalan telephone: 011 502 5882 8302

THANK YOU. Miracles Happen!