My Gold Rush Career Begins in 1984

Chapter 23 Tianshan Mastiff
Since Zhou Jingming was willing to pay for the dog's food, Peng Yuanchao had nothing to say. On the contrary, he seemed quite happy and even hoped that Zhou Jingming could successfully catch the big male dog.

As Zhou Jingming said, setting up camp and having a dog guarding it would definitely have many benefits.

The main reason is that Zhou Jingming is finally willing to spend some money, which is a great deal for free.

These past few days, Peng Yuanchao has been taking care of everything for him, from food and drink to toileting. He watches his savings dwindle day by day, and it pains him to see it all.

He was unaware of Zhou Jingming's true motives for keeping a dog.

He was just thinking that once the gold rush ended in the fall, the dog would be useless, and maybe he could still have a meal of dog meat.

Seeing Zhou Jingming approach, the two large dogs, though seemingly friendly towards people, were still strangers and maintained their vigilance, keeping a distance of seven or eight meters.

Zhou Jingming was the same; he remained wary of the dogs. He never thought these dogs, which had nothing to do with him, were harmless, because he had been nearly injured by them twice, both times in northern Xinjiang.

When Zhou Jingming first arrived in Wucheng to start working, he encountered a pack of stray dogs in the suburbs of Wucheng.

Or perhaps they aren't even stray dogs; they might be pets kept by nearby farmers who just ran away and formed a pack.

In his mind, dogs were like this: without a leash, they could roam freely, wandering through villages and alleys, finding other people's dogs that were tied up, sniffing their rear ends, greeting everyone, marking their territory by urinating everywhere, and then gradually forming a pack, swaggering through the streets.

There were about ten wild dogs in the pack. It's estimated that once a dog pack reaches a certain size, a leader will emerge from among them, like a tightly organized group.

He was riding his bicycle to run errands when he saw the dogs from afar, looking meek and docile, as if they posed no threat.

But as his bicycle passed by, for some reason, one of the dogs, a spotted dog that didn't look particularly remarkable, suddenly let out a howl. This was quite alarming, and the rest of the dogs immediately began barking and surrounding Zhou Jingming.

Startled, Zhou Jingming shuddered and wobbled a few times before finally regaining his balance. He then pedaled furiously, only to be chased far away by the pack of stray dogs.

Dogs kept approaching from both sides of the bicycle, trying to bite his calves, which made him feel extremely uneasy. He chased them for several hundred meters before letting them go.

On another occasion, Zhou Jingming was with the exploration team when they passed through a Kazakh man's summer pasture. When they went to fetch water, they encountered a dog that chased them for more than a hundred meters in the wild.

But then Zhou Jingming thought again that he was a grown man and couldn't possibly be unable to beat a dog, so he turned around and chased after the dog, picking up stones to throw at it as he went.

He finally managed to hit the dog with a stone, and the dog tucked its tail between its legs and ran away, not daring to come close, but still barking wildly at him from a distance.

Later I learned that it was a dog kept by a herder. It was too fierce and had even bitten its owner. It would also bite livestock, which is why it was beaten out.

Even so, Zhou Jingming still loves dogs.

During his two years as an educated youth in the Great Northern Wilderness, he saw the large, clumsy dogs used by hunters in Northeast China for hunting, working seamlessly together to hunt bears and kill pigs.

During his years in northern Xinjiang, he also saw the sheepdogs of the herdsmen who could manage their flocks of sheep in an orderly manner as if they were their own arms. They were almost omnipotent in guarding, protecting, fighting, and hunting, and could even drive away wolves and bears.

Northern Xinjiang is a place that produces good dogs.

A good dog can be the most loyal and capable companion, even more reliable than the members of a gold-digging team.

Upon seeing the large male dog, Zhou Jing was immediately captivated. Based on his understanding of the Northern Xinjiang Shepherd Dog, judging from its size and appearance—weighing at least 120 or 130 pounds—it should be a Tianshan Mastiff.

However, Zhou Jingming was not very confident in catching it, nor could he be sure whether he could tame it and use it for his own purposes.

After all, this is a fully grown dog, and the intimacy between them is far less easy to develop than when they were puppies.

But he still wanted to give it a try.

Raising a puppy from scratch, until it's usable and easy to use, takes a lot of time and effort.

If you buy from herders, it's not easy to get a truly good dog.

A well-trained dog by the Kazakhs will not easily attack.

For them, sheepdogs are a precious legacy from their ancestors, hailed as one of the "seven treasures," because they firmly believe that "humans do not understand human nature, but dogs do."

Upon seeing the naan bread that Zhou Jingming tossed over, the male dog hesitated for a moment. Seeing that he made no further moves, it cautiously approached as before, then picked up the naan bread, turned around, ran back a few steps, tilted its head, and chewed the small piece of naan bread into pieces and swallowed it, as if chewing a bone. Some crumbs fell from its mouth and were scrambled to be picked up and eaten by the female dog and the three half-grown puppies.

Zhou Jingming then tossed out another small piece of naan bread.

This time it's closer than before.

Perhaps because it had eaten it twice in a row, this time the male dog was less wary and moved forward faster than before, picked up the naan, and ran back to chew and swallow it.

The third time, even closer...

Then the fourth time, the fifth time...

Zhou Jingming waited patiently, and after one piece of naan was finished, he took another.

Finally, the big dog came to a distance of more than a meter from Zhou Jingming. Even the mother dog and the other three puppies dared to come within two meters of Zhou Jingming.

Furthermore, after getting the naan bread, it didn't run away like before, but swallowed it on the spot.

Seeing that the time was ripe, Zhou Jingming took off his thick military overcoat, intending to cover the big male dog's head with it to hold it down and prevent it from being bitten.

But this act of taking off his clothes alerted the five dogs to something amiss, and they ran away again.

Zhou Jingming wasn't worried. He took out a third naan from the bag, tore it into small pieces, and continued to tease it.

Soon, several dogs were lured back to them.

Next, he tore the remaining naan into pieces and scattered them all within his reach, then began to adjust his posture, preparing to lunge forward.

Taking advantage of the opportune moment when the male dog was scavenging for naan bread and the female dog and three puppies were also gathering food, he suddenly lunged forward, covering the male dog with his coat.

Zhou Jingming's sudden action caught the large male dog, whose vigilance had dropped to a minimum, off guard, and it pounced on him.

The other dogs immediately darted away more than ten meters, and the mother dog turned around and barked wildly at Zhou Jingming.

But Zhou Jingming soon realized that he had underestimated the strength of the big male dog; the power that this big guy suddenly unleashed was greater than that of an adult.

He lunged at it but couldn't hold it down.

It struggled violently for a few moments, twisting its body and kicking wildly with its claws. Before Peng Yuanchao could get to the side to help, it had already broken free and run far away.

Seeing this, Zhou Jingming could only shake his head and sigh as he watched the large dog run to the side and bark wildly.

Peng Yuanchao returned to the campfire and picked up his hunting rifle again: "This isn't so easy to catch. Even if we do, we might not be able to tame it. Don't waste our food. With you doing this, we'll probably have to be more careful with our supplies when we go into the mountains to scout this place... It's better to eat dog meat!"

As he spoke, he raised the gun again.

However, the dogs became very wary. As soon as they saw Peng Yuanchao holding a gun, they turned and darted into the darkness, not giving him a chance to fire.

He shone his flashlight and scanned the area where the pack of dogs had left, but seeing that they had completely disappeared, he had no choice but to give up.

With some time still to go before dawn, the two returned to the campfire, wrapped themselves in blankets, and went back to sleep.

They slept and awoke until dawn, ate something, packed their luggage, and continued on their journey.

After walking a little further along the mountain path, Zhou Jingming happened to look back and saw that the dogs had come out again. They were sniffing around the buried campfire, trying to find the leftover food scraps of the two men, and occasionally looking up in the direction the two men had left.

Zhou Jingming knew that it would be difficult to lure the big male dog close again.

It seems we'll have to find another way to get a good dog.

(End of this chapter)