During each visit to a host family, if the dog wasn’t far away with the herds, we took the opportunity to collect some data. As mentioned before, the MBDP team not only took notes on the herder’s responses to the dog, but we also recorded the height and weight of each young Bankhar dog.
We were able to take the weight of each dog by using a harness that we would then be attached to a scale that we would use to lift the dog off the ground and take its weight. This was sometimes very perplexing to the dog itself, but allowed us to check that the dog was being fed properly (to do this we also felt the dogs ribs and hips) and to gather some scientific data about the growth rate of Bankhar dogs.
We used a simple measuring tape to check the dog’s height from shoulder to foot, which similarly helped us see how fast each dog was growing.
After taking these measurements we would also “deworm” the dogs by giving them specific medicine to keep them healthy.