There was always a dog

Dogs have always been my 'thing' and that would never change. Actually, don't recall a time in my life when I didn't have a doggie.

I was 3-ish when I met Lakshmi, a Sidney Silky - my first doggie. She was full white and very beautiful. We had to give her away since we were shifting to a smaller house. Mom says we gave her to our baker; dad is not sure. Dad was good with dogs, and colleagues-friends gave them to him, so most times the dogs that came to us were already christened. Soon we had a couple of Tobys - never liked the name Toby (why would people name their dogs Toby!)

I did like Toby No 1 though. He was a little golden-brown puppy - sweet chap, and a good guard dog. One day, we returned from a family outing to find him frothing. He died the next day. We lived in Santhome then, our neighbours were pharmaceutical companies. Toby No 1 could have licked something while mom walked him in the compound that morning. The companies emptied chemical waste into an open drain. Broken bottles and other hazardous waste lay strewn in the compound. We, children played there. Thinking back I realise how naive we were not to raise concerns with the landlord. No idea what the adults did about it. But let's turn attention to the other Toby now.

I return from school one evening to find Toby No 2 in the corridor. Our home in Santhome had a peculiar set-up: three rooms completely independent of each other with doors and windows opening onto a long corridor, a bathing room on the right end of the corridor and a latrine on the other. So there was Toby No 2 - all excited to see me, wagging his tail like hyper-active teenage males do (those who have / had dogs that age will understand this). I couldn't pass by without him grabbing at me with both his front paws and attempting to hump me! He had a case of raging hormones, was too chaotic to manage, and eventually we just returned him to the donor.

It was 1992, and I was in college. My brothers were still in school. The youngest was a die hard Van Damme fan. Remember Jean-Claude Van Damme? Bloodsport, Kick Boxer, Double Impact... well, I don't really know which one worked the magic, but my brother was determined to learn Taekwondo. He must have been around 14 years old then, and we know how testy it can be when there's a teenager at home. So, he got his way, and took the one-hour bus journey to Parrys for Taekwondo coaching even before the Sun rose. One rainy night, he brings home the ugliest looking puppy I've ever seen. The pup suffered from a severe skin problem and all kinds of phobia, which caused him to shiver and urinate at the slightest. So it was rather ironic that we named him Tiger - he did have black stripes but...

Tiger has a very sad back story. Some very bad people had set his tail on fire and my brother found him, wet and shivering, in the stadium when practising Taekwondo. Tiger turned out to be a brave dog as time passed, and was famous for slinking away in the dead of the night to 'party' with other doggies. He would return home in the morning (sometimes a day or two later) - muddy and scared from a fight or in high spirits from an interesting encounter with someone special. If memory serves me right, he was one dog my dad just couldn't discipline!

A couple of years later, came Cindy - she was the most beautiful full-black German Shepherd by far! The moment her little paws touched the floor, the black ball of fur ran straight into the kitchen, and gobbled up all the mint and coriander leaves mom was cutting for our chicken Biriyani that afternoon. The pedigree was the house-warming gift from my paternal uncle - we had built our new house and moved into the then deserted suburbs of south Chennai. Tiger and Cindy were best of friends, and lived with us for eight long years until she passed away from kidney failure, and he a year later of sadness. We loved them very much, as they did us.

And then there was Tinku - a Japanese Spitz. Dad's colleague gave away the dog since he couldn't control the animal - Tinku had a very bad temper (would bite at the slightest). A very high-spirited dog, he kept our house safe for 16 long years. In fact, every delivery person knew us as 'the house with the black dog'. Tinku might have been a little fluffy fella but he surely scared the living daylights out of anyone who tired to approach the gate even. He was 80 years by human calculation when he passed away peacefully in his sleep. He was the dog my children knew as they were growing up. Tinku's nature mellowed with age, but he was still feared by the newspaper man, the water boy, the postman, the provision store chap, the courier man, and everyone who knew the yellow house on Plot 23B. So much so, we used to mention our delivery address over the phone as : the black dog's house. Tinku made us famous! 

We had several dogs after him - a whole family actually: Summer, Echo, Fluffy, Snappy, Max, Bruno and Princess - cross breeds: Golden Retriever and Himalayan Bhutia. They died of blood poisoning. January 20 will be their first death anniversary. Burno is the only one to survive and lives with us. Death of one dog is difficult, a whole family dying one after another under 36 hours was too much to bear. I have tears in my eyes as I write this. It is true that you do loose part of yourself when someone you love dies, and I suppose you can never forgive yourself in the end. Watching them suffer was the worst torture.

I've been writing this piece for a couple of days, and had to stop several times to collect myself. You will probably find inconsistencies in my writing as waves of joyful and sad emotions surface. But isn't blog writing about getting in touch with real life experiences, penning from the heart rather than the head...

We keep dogs for different reasons, but I've come to realise that dogs don't know these reasons. They are in your life because they love you, unconditionally. How blessed we must be to have their unconditional love. I leave you with this movie: A dog's purpose as a tribute to the dogs I've had in my life.