My Pets Part 1

I consider myself to be an animal lover... I believe that everybody who knows me, knows my special affinity towards animals.. Infact, I would like to say that I belong to the category, which is called 'Would never hurt a fly on purpose', which is entirely wrong...I do kill mosquitoes...have killed cockroaches, spiders and even some lizards and will continue to do the same... my favourite dishes include mutton liver and chicken...

Then again.. I love animals... their unconditional love, gratitude, innocence and beautiful faces...

Today, I would like to talk about the animals who were/are in my life... Altogether,I have had 9 pets in my life... 6 dogs and 3 cats... I know... its freaky..

My family belongs to that category, which is incomplete without a pet...we always had pets... by pets .. I mean dogs... we always had dogs in our life... well... I did for sure...

Rocky: Well.. he was my first pet.. I dont remember much about him..not even his face.. except for the fact that he was a German shepherd.. or was he?? I dont even know what happened to him...did he die?? ran away?? sold?? no idea.. I was too young then.. probably 5 years old... I am afraid I cant spare any details about him.. but still when I think about the dogs in my life in a chronological order, for no apparent reason his is the first name that comes up on to my mind... Uh..thats strange..I guess...

Micky : I have a vague memory of him.. he was very naughty and small.. I dont know which breed he belonged to.. but we all ran away when he approached us... he used to bite everyone mercilessly... he died young.. I still remember seeing his dead body.. I didnt really like that dog..we had him right after Rocky... at that age.. I was not an animal lover.. like every kid I used to tease them... hurt them.. or avoided them... well... mickey died... nothing more to be said..

Lassie : She was the only female dog I had... We moved to Trivandrum to a new home... and my father introduced us to Lassie.. she was a german shepherd.. all grown up.. I wasnt really fond of her either... I dont remember petting or playing with her... what I do know is that we gave her up to somebody we knew.. I remember her leaving our house, with this person who is close to our family.. I dont know why we gave her up... frankly.. I didnt care...

Tomy : Now, there is a dog I remember.. Tomy can be considered to be my first dog.. all the rest were our family dogs.. Tomy was mine... I still remember the day he came home.. I was probably 7-8 yrs old... and he was very little.. he came in a carton.. we bought him from a family friend of ours.. who is famous for the no. of dogs they had.. it was sort of a ranch.. only it wasnt..

We bought Tomy from them... he was named by his first owner.. u know... the guy who sold him to us... I wasnt very fond of Tomy in the beginning.. he was very naughty when he was a puppy.. and I was dead scared of him... I remember my brother using him to scare the hell out of me... I even remember screaming at the top of my lungs when he came near me.. all our neighbours had a good laugh about it...

Tomy and I ...we grew up together.. it was my father who vanished my fears I had about Tomy... He didnt do anything in particular... just allowed us to be together for somewhile and showed me the soft side of Tomy... from then on.. I began to love him and vice versa.. may be he was really fond of me from the very beginning.. only..I didnt have a clue...

Tomy loved to run away from home..whenever he saw the gate opened, he went out...and everybody ran after him with his chain... when they brought him back home from the elope episode.. he was beaten up with a red or yellow wire- I really cant remember the exact colour..but I am pretty sure it was either one of them- for some reason he was really scared of that particular wire.. it was sort of a conditional thing.. then I will start crying begging not to beat him... this made him like me even more.. so whenever my parents try to beat me or scold me for something completely my fault.. Tomy used to bark at them.. we all loved it...so when guests came in, my mother used to show them this dog trick.. she pretend to beat me or scold me infront of Tomy and he starts barking.. that was a good show...

One of the things that I liked about Tomy was that he knew how to give a shake hand.. I dont remember how he picked it up..but whenever we held our hands to him for a shake hand he always gave us one.. if he was standing on his skinny four legs, he used to sitdown before he made this royal gesture... it was cute.. I really liked it.. and none of my other pets did it...

He was with us for almost 10 yrs.. Tomy was really scared of lightining and thunder.. oh boy.. really scared that he never leave the house no matter what we did.. He was a handsome dog..

He even had a girlfriend.. there was this female dog who came to visit him and like every caring, loving family we used to scare her away.. but nothing stopped them from being together.. she still continued to visit him for sometime.. then she vanished.. maybe to the wilderness of the forbidden forest...

Tomy went missing one whole day.. we didnt know where he was.. by evening..we were trying to cope with the fact that we lost him forever... but then.. somebody found him and brought him back to us..

We had to give him up.. he was getting too old..10 yrs to be precise and he was showing all sorts of old age symptoms... by the time..we had another dog and Tomy seemed to be unwanted and unloved... and he knew that..

so we gave him up.. I still remember..it was a Sunday..this guy came over to take him away in an autorickshaw.. Tomy never had been in an autorickshaw before..so we had our doubts about that..but to our surprise..he didnt seem to have a problem about that... after 10 yrs with us.. he left us for no fault of his own...

I dont know what happened to him after that.. I wanted to know his whereabouts.. where is he?? who is he with ?? is he being loved?? things like that.. but my mother discouraged me... and I couldn't do anything about it..

I know he must be dead by now.. if he is alive... he must be 18 yrs of age..and I dont think German shepherds live upto that age...

Now, all I can think about is...we didnt even had the chance to say a proper 'Goodbye'...if that makes any sense..

to be continued....