In the first chapter we find that Dawa is born in Paro on a cold December night with a litter of six. His mother is a skinny black dog, who decides to replace the breastfeeding with food, leads her puppies to a garbage dump. That day they find a chunk of pork which they eat greedily. Dawa, being the smallest and the weakest, could not climb on to the heap. He somehow managed to climb the heap but he rudely gets pushed around. Soon afterward his mother and his brothers and sisters fall like a rock from a cliff leaving him all alone by himself.
Realizing that the death of his family is because of human intervention he generated a fear for them. He mostly stays in hiding and came out in the night to pick up the food rejected by other dogs which affected his growth. Because of his misshaped body the other dogs called him Koto (Crooked).
One full moon night, he looks at the moon and decided to call himself as Dawa Koto. Exactly a year after he had chosen his new name, he positioned himself and started his howling, from that day onward all the dogs in Paro followed his lead to howl and bark.
One day Dawa sees a bag of dried fish busted open when it was being unloaded from a truck in front of a shop. dozens of dogs appeared from everywhere and began to help themselves. Dawa hears the shop owner whispering to his son to get the whip. Dawa warns the other dogs to run away from the danger.
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