Einer schottischen Ärztin, die zu Beginn des letzten Jahrhunderts Dienst in der damaligen britischen Kronkolonie Indien in einem Hospital geleistet hat, haben wir die Einführung des Tibet Terriers in die westliche Welt zu verdanken.
1922 traf Frau Dr. Greig das erste Mal auf einen Tibet Terrier, als ein tibetischer Händler mit seiner kranken Frau in dem Hospital in Kanpur (Cawnpore), wo sie zu der Zeit arbeitete, um ihre Hilfe bat.
Ihre ersten Erfahrungen mit diesen Hunden und die Entscheidung, diese Rasse zu züchten, hat Frau Dr. Greig viele Jahre später in einem Brief beschrieben. Ich möchte ihn hier auszugsweise zitieren, um sie mit ihren eigenen Worten ihre ersten Erlebnisse mit den Hunden erzählen zu lassen.

18.03.1956
Now I'll tell you how I came to get the genuine Tibetan Terrier. Tibetan Terriers are the original "Holy" dogs of the Tibetan's rare breed (or were before the chinese invaded recently in monasteries in and around Lhasa). I introduced the Tibetan Terrier into India and got it recognized as a true pure breed and then sent them to England to my mother and sister who started them here. I now own the biggest kennel of pure Tibetans in the world as far as I know.

I joined the Women's Medical Service, a branch of the Indian Medical Service and went to India. I was posted to Cawnpore in charge of the Dufferin Hospital for Women and Children. ... One day I was astounded to find a Tibetan and his wife and all their worldly possessions, including his Tibetan Terriers, camped in the Hospital grounds. The Tibetan had brought (an) Indian ... to act as interpreter. He told me the Tibetan had brought his wife to me because she had a devil inside that was killing her, the same as his (the Indian's) wife had had. As I had taken the devil from his wife, he had told the Tibetan to bring his wife to me so that I could take the devil away from her and make her all right, too. So, the Tibetans came into a paying family ward, which was really like a small four-roomed cottage - one room for the patient and the rest of the cottage for the family so that they could all be together.

The snag was the Tibetan Terrier bitch (Lilly they called her) for Lilly would not be separated from the wife and I could not have Lilly on her bed after the operation. The wife said that Lilly would not stay with her husband, so I said Lilly could stay in my house and I would bring her to see them every day some time or other.

The wife said if Lilly will go with you that will be best, but she won't go to a stranger. I just picked Lilly off the foot of the bed and said: 'Come on, Lilly, come walk with me, there's a good girl', and she turned her head around and licked my hand. The Tibetans were astonished. About a fortnight after the operation, Lilly had a family of four pups, and when they were about nine weeks old, the Tibetans decided that the wife was strong enough to travel slowly. They brought the four pups to me to choose one - a gift to show their gratitude for the recovery of the wife.

They told me that Tibetan Terriers were the original Holy dog of Tibet and were considered 'luck bringers'. That they were bred in the monasteries in Upper and Western Tibet and not in those in and around Lhasa where foreigners were permitted to go. In Lhasa, they bred a dog in the monasteries which was not the real Holy dog so that they could give a "monastery" dog to a foreigner who wanted one and still not give away their real Holy dog.

And Tibetan lucky enough to be given a genuine Tibetan Terrier by one of the Lamas treated it exactly as one of the children and was considered not an animal but a human soul in another form.

Tibetan Terriers have been bred in those monasteries for more than 2.000 years. My puppy I called "Bunty". Bunty was so adorable and so different to any other dog I had ever had that when the Tibetan came to Cawnpore two years later to show me that his wife was still all right and that the devil had not returned, I asked him to find a husband for Bunty, and that was how I started.

What decided me to carry on and breed Tibetan Terriers after I left India was the following incident. My Hospital, and so of course my house, was on the edge of the native part of Cawnpore. While I was there, there were anti-British riots. The day before those riots started a Fakir (Indian Holy Man) came into my garden and sat himself down under a banyan tree. When I was passing, he said, "Salaam Miss Sahib, I have come."
I said, "So I see, but who sent you?"
He said, "The Wise Ones."
I asked, "Who are the Wise Ones?"
He replied, "Those who live in the very far off high mountains."

That could only mean they lived somewhere in Tibet. Well! All the time the riots were on, he sat there and no Indian came near us to harm us. I was the only European who could leave their house to go out unarmed. Several Europeans were badly hurt and one or two killed during theses six weeks. Then one evening the Fakir stood up and said to me, "My work here is now done, I go." Bunty and her husband and children were playing on the verandah. The Fakir looked at them and said "Miss Sahib, take great care of your people from the monasteries and they will take care of you."

Next morning he was gone, and word came that the riots were over. I'm quite sure we in Hospital owed our lives to the fact that I had Tibetan Terriers, for I think the Fakir was sent to protect the Tibetan Terriers from a rioting crowd of Indians and so we came in for protection too. The Tibetan, when he gave me Bunty, said, "As long as you have Bunty or her descendants, you will find someone or something to help you should you need it, " and I have.

Links
1 (engl.)
Beginnings of the Tibetan Terrier
Zeittafel über die Einführung der Rasse in Großbritannien, USA und Kanada


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