My relationship with dogs goes back a long time. Way back in 1977, when I was 4, I was very fond of animals and my dream was to grow up and become a zoo keeper. We were living in Bhutan back then. One day, we got a gift from Ashi Choki, the king's aunt. It was the most precious gift ever. We got 2 albino Lhasa Apso dogs, Karma and Karsang. They had long white hair, blue eyes and pink noses, and they were both very beautiful dogs. Karsang, the male dog, was the mischievous one, whereas Karma, the female dog, was the well behaved, calm one. They were small dogs, and I was very fond of them. They went on to have 10 pups, across three litters. Most of the pups didn't survive beyond a few days because they were tiny like white mice; the few that survived, were given away to family friends. The eldest one, Laika, was given away to my best friend, Akshay Mishra. Karsang would do stuff like running away from home and going to my sister's school! He would also love chasing any car that he saw. Whenever he was naughty, he knew it, and he would come and bury his face in my mother's sari, which was his way of saying sorry. Karsang lived for just three years, because his habit of chasing cars sadly resulted in his getting run over one day. It was a sad moment in our lives. Karma lived a long life and she went at the ripe old age of 16. She was a well traveled dog, and went with us from Thimpu to Delhi to Belgrade to Vienna to Delhi again. I was heartbroken when she went, because I had grown up with her. She lived a good life, but at the age of 12, she lost her eyesight to cataract; a couple of years later, her hearing went; and in the last few months of her life, she struggled to walk because her legs became weak.
When I was 31, my elder sister got a German Shepherd pup, Ashi. My sister moved from Bangalore to Delhi and started living with my parents and me. So we had a dog in the household again. Ashi was almost a couple of years old when she came to us, and my sister had done a great job of training her. So she was a well behaved dog. Ashi was just a few months younger than my middle sister's daughter, and the two of them were inseparable. Ashi would be very patient, tolerant and indulging with the little child as she pulled her tail, walked under her treating her like a bridge, and occasionally stuck her finger into Ashi's mouth and eyes! Yes, Ashi would do crazy things from time to time. She would lose her head whenever she saw cats, and would go chasing after them; on 2 occasions, the cats hid under parked cars while trying to escape from her; in an attempt to get to the cats, Ashi got stuck under the cars and we had to get car jacks to get her out! She once chased a kitten and cornered it; a moment later, we saw her coming with a bloody nose; we thought she had injured or even killed the kitten, but the gentle giant that she was, Ashi went and got her nose badly scratched by the tiny kitten, while the kitten pranced about merrily! On a couple of occasions, she ran out of the house when I came back from work late at night; it became a game for her to let me and my mother come close to her, and she would then run the moment we got too close; this went on for a while; my mother finally got the idea that to get Ashi back, we just had to start the car and open the door and she would jump in because she loved going for drives; sure enough, the strategy worked! Apart from these occasional acts of mischief, Ashi was a very well behaved, gentle and calm dog. Yes, she would get excitable when my wife, a crazy dog lover, was around. Ashi lived to be almost 15, and went in December 2018. She lived a healthy life till the last two years of her life, when her hind leg muscles atrophied and the poor thing had to drag herself to walk. Her going was another blow to the family.
In between in 2013, my wife baby-sat a black Labrador called Bruno for 2 weeks. We were staying in a Gurgaon condominium. One day, my wife heard a dog barking incessantly on the floor above. She went up and saw this dog tied up in the corridor. She rang the bell. An elderly lady said the dog belonged to her daughter and the daughter had dropped him off for 2 weeks while she was out traveling, and the old lady didn't like dogs, and what's more, this dog was a handful! My wife's heart melted, and she offered to look after Bruno for 2 weeks. Now Bruno was 9 months old, but he hadn't been trained at all, so he was as wild as they came! Those 2 weeks were nothing short of an ordeal for me. Bruno would piddle all over the house, he would chew up slippers, he would rip apart books, he would jump on top of beds and sofas, he would give wet sloppy licks and get our clothes soaked in his saliva, and he would put his forelegs on the dining table and take food from bowls and plates! All these were not at all acceptable in my book. I found myself constantly being agitated and losing my cool, and if I had measured my blood pressure, I am sure it would have been sky-high! For my wife, Bruno could do no wrong, and everything was forgiven! When Bruno's owner came back, I was so relieved that I can't even begin to describe my sheer joy. My wife, however, was crest-fallen and walking around the house like a tragedy queen. For the next couple of months, once a week I would actually drive her 20 minutes away to Bruno's house, and wait patiently in the car while she spent half an hour playing with Bruno. I certainly wasn't going to enter the house, given how my blood pressure went up in Bruno's company. Eventually, Bruno's owner gave him away because she wasn't used to dogs, and Bruno certainly was a handful to manage.
Recently, in December 2019, my sister has got another German Shepherd pup, Zarina. She is a cute, playful little thing, but boy does she need training! So it has been piddle all over the house, constant biting of hands and leaving cut marks on hands because she is teething, holes in clothes made by her teeth, chewing up of slippers etc etc. My sister did a marvelous job of training Ashi, and she is working hard on Zarina, and results are coming, slowly but surely. We visit my sister regularly and my wife and 5 year old son don't mind all that the little dog does. Even though I am fond of Zarina (she is an integral part of the family!), for now I keep a bit of a distance from her and wait for her to turn into a mature, well behaved, 'propah' dog!
I've realised that over time, I've moved from being a dog lover, to someone who likes well behaved, mature, calm dogs, but I just can't handle dogs who are wild. I find myself thinking twice before visiting people who have very boisterous dogs. I guess I've just got too many hygiene related OCDs to be OK with things like dog piddle around the house, or dog saliva on my hands and clothes, or chewed up objects around the house, or painful bite marks and torn clothes because the dog is teething, or dog fur on furniture. Oh well, that's just the way it is! I have nothing against dogs; it's just these things that set me off. As I tell my wife, I'd be equally upset if a human piddled in the house, or put saliva on my hands and clothes, or chewed up things in the house, or bit me playfully and tore my clothes, or left his or her hair all over my bed or on the furniture!!
When I was 31, my elder sister got a German Shepherd pup, Ashi. My sister moved from Bangalore to Delhi and started living with my parents and me. So we had a dog in the household again. Ashi was almost a couple of years old when she came to us, and my sister had done a great job of training her. So she was a well behaved dog. Ashi was just a few months younger than my middle sister's daughter, and the two of them were inseparable. Ashi would be very patient, tolerant and indulging with the little child as she pulled her tail, walked under her treating her like a bridge, and occasionally stuck her finger into Ashi's mouth and eyes! Yes, Ashi would do crazy things from time to time. She would lose her head whenever she saw cats, and would go chasing after them; on 2 occasions, the cats hid under parked cars while trying to escape from her; in an attempt to get to the cats, Ashi got stuck under the cars and we had to get car jacks to get her out! She once chased a kitten and cornered it; a moment later, we saw her coming with a bloody nose; we thought she had injured or even killed the kitten, but the gentle giant that she was, Ashi went and got her nose badly scratched by the tiny kitten, while the kitten pranced about merrily! On a couple of occasions, she ran out of the house when I came back from work late at night; it became a game for her to let me and my mother come close to her, and she would then run the moment we got too close; this went on for a while; my mother finally got the idea that to get Ashi back, we just had to start the car and open the door and she would jump in because she loved going for drives; sure enough, the strategy worked! Apart from these occasional acts of mischief, Ashi was a very well behaved, gentle and calm dog. Yes, she would get excitable when my wife, a crazy dog lover, was around. Ashi lived to be almost 15, and went in December 2018. She lived a healthy life till the last two years of her life, when her hind leg muscles atrophied and the poor thing had to drag herself to walk. Her going was another blow to the family.
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| Ashi in 2010 |
Recently, in December 2019, my sister has got another German Shepherd pup, Zarina. She is a cute, playful little thing, but boy does she need training! So it has been piddle all over the house, constant biting of hands and leaving cut marks on hands because she is teething, holes in clothes made by her teeth, chewing up of slippers etc etc. My sister did a marvelous job of training Ashi, and she is working hard on Zarina, and results are coming, slowly but surely. We visit my sister regularly and my wife and 5 year old son don't mind all that the little dog does. Even though I am fond of Zarina (she is an integral part of the family!), for now I keep a bit of a distance from her and wait for her to turn into a mature, well behaved, 'propah' dog!
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| My son with little Zarina, December 2019 |
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