A dog’s life…

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Original posting date: July 10, 2009

I have been debating whether to write about my dog in a blog. I know I will go overboard when I write about her, its difficult not to. Every dog owner feels that their dog is the most intelligent, most beautiful creature that was ever born. So do I!

I know I have to write about her, because I want to do this for myself. I cannot stop talking about her once I get started…some people have already had a first hand experience with this…I usually recount every little trick that she has ever performed and I don’t stop until I go through her eating habits, bathing habits, human habits, her doctor visits, her blood line, her friends… I guess you get the point. But I feel there’s no better way than to write this down so that not only my friends but I get a chuckle out of it every time I read it.

I recently got a big scare about her health and I cannot describe how heartbreaking and helpless it feels when someone you love so dearly is in pain and you can do nothing but pray. People who have kids can compare it with their love for their children. Yes, my love for her is absolutely the same kind! I cannot help but love this beautiful, intelligent, vivacious, funny and quirky dog of mine.

She came into my life after a lot of blackmail, begging, pleading and praying to my parents. We had lost our first dog a few years before we got her and none of us could get ourselves together to go through the pain again of losing a family member after investing such a lot of love and time in them, so my parents were hesitant to get another dog. A dog’s life is very short, about 10 human years. For comparison sake I was in school 14 years ago, and that doesn’t seem too long ago now (to me).

The joy of having a dog outweighed the pain of losing one (time does the trick) and we decided we needed a new house mate. Actually, the true story is that we had our house broken into, and the cops (as efficient and reliable as they are in India) advised my parents to get a guard dog. So finally the robbers were the answer to my prayers and we decided we needed a BIG dog…you know the scary kind, so that people will not dare touch the front gate, leave alone thinking of robbing our home. German shepherd was the breed of choice since they are known to be ferocious, highly intelligent and extremely loyal. My mom, the kind of person she is…kept saying “it’s all destiny, we shouldn’t get a dog as a commodity. The dog will come to us when the time is right”. Yeah, as if that was going to happen I thought, and kept digging through news paper ads, kept networking and researching. But true to my mom’s words, she came to us one day, literally.

We had visited many people for pups, but this guy asked us if he could bring over the pup to show to us and make sure that the home she’s going to is good enough for her. We fell in love with her the moment we saw her and so did she…with our garden. The story is that mom had cooked fish that day and watered the rose plants with the water used for washing fish (it’s supposed to be good for the plants). This little bundle of black fur was sitting with us in the living room when she smelled the fish, she decided to go exploring her new surroundings. The guy who had brought her over also had another pup, a golden colored Cocker Spaniel, and we were completely smitten by the new breed of dog before us (Cocker Spaniels are rare in India, at least ten years ago they were). By the time we noticed that the German shepherd pup was missing, she had already followed her nose, reached the garden and was busy digging up dirt to get to the fish. We were completely impressed with her...she had owned the house as if it was already her home. Thus began our lives together.

She was black with just a little bit of tan on her paws and looked like any other ordinary puppy…but as months passed, her double fur, long nose and fluffy tail started to manifest her German shepherd breed. She was supposed to be my dog, since my brother was away for his studies, and true to the word, she’s a girl’s girl!

Big, scary, guard dog? Naah…she’s quite the opposite, most gentle German shepherd you have ever seen. She welcomes everybody who shows up at our front door without bias. Milkman, newspaper boy, salesmen, beggars, everybody is welcome as long as they are interested in petting her and give her adequate attention. She understands a lot of words, which is really bewildering and it makes a lot of things easier for us as well. For example she fetches the newspaper in the morning from the paper boy and takes it straight to dad. Nobody else is allowed to take it except dad; she’ll drop it on the ground if I or mom ask for it.

She knows where her brush is and will stand staring at the fridge until someone gives it to her. Her brush had a permanent home in the side pocket of the fridge cover for the first few years. Now the place has changed, but she still stares at the fridge whenever she wants her brush, and we know what she’s looking for. She’s the happiest when she is brushed and will roll over to show her tummy when we ask her to.

She has special hunting skills when it comes to house lizards and enjoys the hunt a lot. Well, if you ask her in a calm voice without giving her any visual cue, where the ‘paal’ (lizard in Marathi) is? she’ll look up towards the wall. When she locates the poor reptile, she’ll make a shrill, high pitched bark which causes the lizard to fall off the wall. We cannot figure out how she does it, but I guess she startles the lizard, causing it to fall. This shrill bark of hers is peculiar for the lizard; she’ll bark in the normal dog voice all other times…but the lizard is special. We know from her irritating bark when she has spotted a lizard. She enjoys hunting for rats too who dare enter our house looking for food.

Another funny thing is that she considered herself a human for a long time; it’s only in the past few years that she has realized that she is a dog. She even tried to talk back to us when she was younger by barking in long sentences. If mom scolded her, she explained herself in the same tone as mom’s, trying to tell us what the matter was.

She’s a fruitarian…she’s absolutely crazy for mangoes, bananas, guava, grapes, jujube (Bor in Marathi), custard apple (Sitafal in Marathi), dates, water chestnuts (Shingada in Marathi) and of course ice cream. I am telling you, she’s one of a kind!

She’s very protective of me. She didn’t let mom wake me up in the morning ever, she use to growl on mom if she tried to. Every morning for me began with a lick on my face, a snort in my ear, and a wagging tail banging on my bed. Me and mom use to pretend to fight just to piss her off. And if mom raised a hand, pretending to beat me, she use to growl on Mom and pounce on her hand. I belonged to her only and nobody dare mess with me, not even mom.

She’s very protective of people when it comes to the well in our front yard. We have a well that is totally secured with a locked grill, through which nothing can fall inside, leave alone people. But she doesn’t let anyone bend over to look inside; she stands guard between people and the well or tries to push us back if we try to bend over too much.

Doctor visits are the easiest of all. It was a nightmare for us to take our first dog to the doctor, but this lady will treat all doctor visits as a walk in the park. We never have to tie her mouth, or chain her down while visiting the doctor. The only thing we do is keep a hand over her head and assure her that we are with her…and she will let the doctor give her multiple injections without a single growl or bite or trying to run away. And she loves to take herself for a walk. She loves to hold the end of her own leash in her mouth and go for a walk…I don’t know what she’s thinking when she does that!?

Dogs are the best companion a person can ever have I feel. The unconditional love, warmth, the sense of belonging and loyalty is unparalleled…a dog will never disappoint you… humans may. One of the best parts of growing up for me was having a dog always along my side. If you want to experience pure love, getting a dog is the way to go (I might sound a little neurotic here)…but really, when you experience it for yourselves, you will know. People who have dogs will vouch for me I guess. But I would also like to add that I have seen dogs and people suffer, mostly due to people’s fault, when they cannot figure out how to train a dog…It’s heart breaking really when that happens. All a dog needs is a lot of TLC (tender loving care), rules and a strong pack leader. Dogs enjoy being a part of a family, so treat them that way, not as something that needs to be chained down 24/7. They also crave for company and attention as any other child might…so leaving them alone for extended periods of time everyday while you are at work seems selfish to me. They will indulge in destructive behavior for sure when they are not happy.

Of all the animals that man has domesticated, dog has become his best friend over time…I can imagine why…

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P.S. I forgot to mention in the main write up a few other things… that she takes her blanky along with her wherever she goes. It’s an old comforter/ bed sheet that she sits on and likes to drag along with her when she comes indoors for the night or goes outdoors in the morning. She adores her collar and her leash. She likes to get her collar on-again the moment she’s done with her bath (since it’s the only time the collar around her neck comes off). She likes to play with stones, and small coconuts that fall off from our coconut tree. And she doesn’t like to chase our neighbor’s cat as much; she sees that as a waste of time I guess.