The Habits... Part 3

Toby grew up to be a beautiful young dog, with shiny white hair and a great looking face. I must admit he is quite a looker! The bitches in the neighbourhood all have an eye for him. It’s another story that he never pays any attention to them. I am telling you, he has this air around him since day one, that he is a royal. He has tastes of a prince, be it where he wants to eat, what he wants to eat, where he wants to sleep, who he wants to be with!

The 2^nd and the 3^rd years of his life were the defining phase for Tobbler. He developed the craziest of habits and became absolutely comfortable in our surroundings. He knows his hierarchy in the family. He is the youngest of course. And he obviously knows how to use this to his advantage. So the days were set for my dog. He knew exactly who to be with at what time of the day. He slept with my sister and I in our room. The moment mum dad woke up in the other room, he would start jumping around like he is about to miss a train. I guess he needed to pee real bad. And it would take us a while to get up. First he would just give his small cries and look at the two of us. Next, if none of us get up, he would get up on the side of the bed and look at us, panting excitedly. The last and believe me that got both of us up in a second, was when he would climb on top of either one of us right on our stomach. My dog has never been the thin, famished types, and that kind of weight on top of you would definitely get you to get up in a flash!

And mind you, his royal highness, cannot sleep without an Air conditioner. Its summer time folks, and he deserves one doesn't he! He starts panting when you switch off the Ac.. He'l look at you as if he'l pass out if you don't switch it back on. And i wonder how street dogs survive in this heat! Anyways.. We take our yearly summer breaks.. And guess what, our house caretaker calls us every time.. Saying "Madam, Tobbler cannot sleep at night. Can we switch on the AC for him.?" Of course our answer is in the affirmative.

I think most dogs don't like taking a bath but Tobbler absolutely despises it. Its an agenda to get him to take a bath.. And he's the funniest when I do end up giving him one. For starters, he'l frown, and it is some frown.. You can actually see a swollen face underneath all the whiskers! And then after a few rounds of water on his body, he starts to get mad and starts growling. Yes, my dog has a very bad temper. You cannot do anything he doesn't like. ;) The latest, however is the funniest. He starts biting the water off! I mean you're putting water on him and he tries to bite the water! It is a sight.. I think next time i should make a video of it! Quite hilarious.

In the evenings, my dog is strictly at my Dad's beck and call.. or is it the other way around! ;) He needs to walked outside, and my sweet daddy takes him outside. So tobbler becomes my dad's tail. Wherever Pa goes, my dog has to follow. Even if Pa is taking a stroll in the lobby, my toby walks behind him, until finally the main doors are opened and he gets out.

Ok i think i've written enough for the day, So until next time.. Happy reading! :)

The First Year of my precious.. Part 2..

The first year of my dogs life was the most fun time for all of us. There is not too much of a difference between raising a kid and raising a dog I have realised. It was an experience my sister and I will cherish forever.

So let me get back to the first day. Our very own lovely little angel came over to our house. At that time we used to live on the second floor. I remember I placed him down at my parent’s room for the first time. He looked quite puzzled with the new surroundings. Sniffing around and getting scared of everyone’s step. My mother instantly became fond of him.

Dinner was laid and so was my doggy’s first meal. We gave him milk. But he was not in the mood for milk. He kept giving a small cry after every few minutes, obviously missing his family. After the meal, came the fruits. Ma instantly cut a slice of papaya and gave it to him. To everyone’s surprise he ate it! In excitement all of us fed him an entire papaya. My dog slept all curled up on the bed next to my mum, mostly in her arms the whole night! The next morning he got the biggest bout of loose motions. I think that was the last time he ever ate papaya in his life!

That night we finally christened his name. Everyone sat on the dining table and we all had this huge discussion. From Fluffy to Bruno to Scooby to Champaign all names were put on the table, quite literally. My mother’s side of the family had this legacy of keeping their dogs names on alcoholic drinks. That’s cause my grandfather loved his drink! So they had dog names whisky, rum, the last one was named gin.

But my father is a teetotaller. He loves to drink all right, but its water that he enjoys! And a glass of ginger ale really sets his moods on a high! My dad gave in an ultimatum that this dog will not be named after some alcohol. So we needed to decide what we all liked as a family. And the answer was simple.. Chocolates! J After writing all the chocolate names we boiled down to two, Mars and Tobblerone. Dad and ma started calling him with those names. Just to get the feel of the whole thing. “ Mars, Mars come here sweety” my mom gushed. Somehow that didn’t sound too good. “Tobblerone, Tobbler, give me a hug you little gem.” My dad put him on his lap. Dad smiled and looked at all of us. It was a smile that my dad gives when he has decided on something. It had content written all over it. So it was decided. Our new dogs name was Tobblerone Singh! Tobbler in short. Toby in very short. Toblu when we adore him. Tobli when we are crazy about him. I’ll tell you what we call him when we hate him in the next few chapters!!

So didi and I got ourselves together to train tobbler. I won’t say we did the best job ever, but by our standards we did alright. J The potty and piss training was the most difficult. Every morning when Tobbler would relieve himself in all the craziest of places in our house, we would put newspapers and put them outside in the small back terrace that we had in our house. In the evenings, post dinner we would take him there and wait for hours. This was a nice time for my sister and I since it helped us bond together. We would share the day happenings with each other and generally have a great time in these evening sessions! A few times tobbler would oblige us in a short time. But there were days we waited for hours and this fellow would just sniff around and piss everywhere but not shit! Idiot.

We never leashed him for anything. I was totally against it. So even when he had to go downstairs outside, on the road, we would walk with him and he would do his thing! I must admit that that was the first mistake I made while bringing him up. I made a lot more. I have learnt so much from bringing up this dog that my next one is going to be a super brilliant dog. The perfect one!!

Anyways after a couple of months, Tobbler started teething. You know most dogs start eating and nibbling on things around the house. Like tables, clothes, shoes, oh and how can I forget, my dogs second favourite, socks. But what Toby loved the most was to eat us when he got a sensation in his teeth. I mean he would see any one of us four, particularly di and I, and would head straight for our feet! And he would do so relentlessly too till the time I would not start screaming.

This was one of the worst phases of having Tobbler around. He would just not listen. He had become bigger, so it was not easy to manoeuvre him around the way we used to. Plus he never listened to us. I stopped taking out my shoes till I went off to sleep because of this. I mean imagine, being in your own house and not being able to do the simple things. Like take of your shoes!

I got sick of this habit one day and declared that I don’t want this dog anymore. My parents laughed, my sister cribbed too, ofcourse she too had had enough of this biting, nibbling nonsense. I know I didn’t really mean it, but I so wanted it to stop. “Talk to Dr. Rita” my dad suggested. It wasn’t a bad idea. I called her the very next minute and told her our plight. She laughed, “Geetika, Its very normal for dogs to do such a thing. I agree with you, that most dogs bite off things and not really people.” “Uh uh”, she cleared her throat. “But it’s ok. The habit will go. The first thing you need to do is teach him some manners. He needs to know when he’s doing something wrong. Keep a folded newspaper handy. Whenever he does something you do not approve of, hit him on his nose with that newspaper. He will understand and not make that mistake again.

Also do him a favour Geetika. Get him some chews. There are some exceptional shops for pets all around Delhi. Go get him something he can chew on, something fleshy, now that you’ve told me he likes to chew on flesh!” And she gave a big laugh.” Also feed him chicken in his meals. Make a nice broth for him and give him chicken and roti two times a day. He’s big enough to digest it.” I thanked her and put the phone down. I had already started to understand that my doggy was unique. And that he had done something awesome in his past life to deserve this. Non vegetarian meals twice a day, and not to forget chews for appetisers, what a life!

And so this became one of the first routines for my dear tobbler. In the morning we would get up and before rushing for school we would have our breakfast. Toby would sit beside me, waiting for me patiently to finish my meal. Then came the part that he and I loved the most our hot favourite, chocolate milk. He would start getting impatient and stand up on me a couple of times till I finished my milk. I would leave a few sips in the end for him. And in one shot you would see him lick off the milk from his bowl and look so satisfied as if he’s won this war and victory is his. For my dog, food is life. The satisfaction he gets after a meal or a snack or some milk or curd, is like a man achieving nirvana. And this satisfaction comes everytime he eats! It’s just that big a deal for him.

Once we came home in the afternoon. We would have our lunch and so would Toby. And then once his lunch was over, he would sit right beside me and start his “I am so cute and I’ve never had any food stare”. This means that wants a chewy. He would finish this chewy in a day. It was his dessert after a nice afternoon meal and he cannot do without it. And that’s when he would begin to stare. I cannot explain to you how innocent my dog looks when he gives me “his look”.

I’m sure you must have seen the character “Puss” in the animated film Shrek. His droopy lovey dovey eyes are not even half as marvellous as the one my dog makes. As if he’s telling you through his eyes that Geetika didi, look at me, I am your loving dog, who has never had a decent meal in his life. And I ask for only one thing and one thing only, that you give me my chewy bone, so that I can rest in peace.

And the moment you give him that bone, he would totally ignore you as you don’t even exist. This was an everyday routine, he’s sobered down a little bit now, but he still needs his chewy every once in a while. And then his “food stare is back”!

An Ode to the 5th Sethi of the House!...Tobbler my Dog! Part- 1

I have always told people that I can write a book on my dog, that there are so many things to tell the world about this amazing creature that I can fill some 10 chapters of a book on him. Believe me it was just a figure of speech for telling everyone that “Tobbler” my dog, is a gem. He’s different yet just like any other dog, he’s funny yet very annoying, he’s adorable yet sometimes you despise him no end. But last night I actually got a thought. That why not I actually write about my sweet little innocent(!!!) dog.

So here I am dedicating following chapters to my dog- Tobbleron aka Tobbler celebrating 11 brilliant years of his life, with us.

The first experience

My last dog, Gin passed away at the age of 16 in January 1999. He was officially my uncle’s dog, who used to live on the ground floor of the house where we stayed. But once my uncle moved to Singapore, we had the opportunity to take care of him. Gin was a well trained dog, who loved to be in the outdoors. My elder sister was especially close to him and his demise was very difficult for her. But he lived a full happy life. And so we had no complaints when he left us and went to someplace better. Suddenly life felt very empty around us. For me I grew up with Gin around. I was born with him being just about 2-3 months old, so it was a very different feeling of not having him around anymore. So one day I called his vet, just to say hi and she gave me a suggestion that why not we keep another dog. It had been just a month since Gin was no more. But she convinced me that the best way to get over this was to get another dog. I placed the suggestion on the floor of the house (at the dinner table at home). My dad was not committal but my mother was very vocal that she did not want another dog. That we both, my sister and I, will get married soon and leave the dog to age with dad and her. My mother, like most mothers, is a sensitive soul and she didn’t want to get attached to another dog. But I had made up my mind that life is going to be quite boring if we don’t keep another dog and that too soon! I called the vet, and discussed the possibilities of the different breeds. I personally wanted to keep a Labrador because they are the most loving things on this planet! But we stayed in a flat on the second floor. The house was my grand fathers, so we could use the small garden outside on the ground floor, but it was nothing like the one these labs deserve. Plus the vet told me that they need to be walked atleast 6-7 km’s a day. The last suggestion took the want of owning a lab away from me. I don’t think anyone in my family had the time nor the inclination to walk a dog for 7 km’s a day! And I was not particularly keen on owning an obese dog. I told her that any small house dog is good with me. And that she should call me as soon as she finds anyone who is willing to give or sell a pup.

A week later I got a call from the vet. There was this family who lived some 15 minutes away from us. Their two loving dogs had given birth to 3 pups, 2 bitches and a dog two months ago. They were looking for people to adopt them. She gave me her number and told me to go and adopt whichever one I liked. I broke the news at home, and everyone was taken aback. Well I didn’t understand what the big deal was actually. I mean it’s not like the end of the world, in fact it was like a new beginning. My father, being the soft non reaction types gave me his typical, beta do what you feel is right answer, which was as good as a yes. He was quite fond of dogs himself so he didn’t seem to mind. My sister was my partner in crime so there was no problem there. But it was my mother who required all the convincing. She argued, got angry, didn’t speak to me, spoke to me a lot and finally after 2 days agreed to keep the dog. J I called on the number in the morning that day and got the appointment to meet them in the evening at 7. I was so excited. I went to school, I was studying in the 11^th standard, all pumped up and wondered when would school get over and it’ll be 7 o clock. Why is it that when you want the time to move quickly it seems to tick sooooooooo slowly. I told my best friends, my friends, my not so good friends, even the teachers that I am getting a new dog today. Finally school ended. I went back. I waited for mum to finish work and my sister to get back from college. And then it was 6.30pm and we were ready to go. We reached their house in about 20 minutes. I was so excited I almost jumped from our car straight inside their living room. As we were entering one of their dogs was tied up outside and he honestly didn’t look too happy to see us. His bark was the shrillest I’ve heard of any dog. Not too friendly I thought to myself. We were seated in the living room. A young girl came out with 4 dogs in toe. “Hi, I’m Madhuri, you must be Geetika, she looked at me and smiled. I got up and shook her hand. “Hi Madhuri, Its so nice to meet you. I think I spoke to you in the morning.” I smiled back and introduced her to mum and di. “Yes, I had told Rita aunty to find some nice people for the pups. You see I love dogs and so does my family. But chotu, motu and ladoo are the only three we can afford to keep in our house! And now that chotu and ladoo have given birth to these 3 most adorable puppies 2 months ago, we wanted to find them a good safe place to live.” She explained, ushering in the maid with some nice delicacies. Chotu motu ladoo!!!! I thought. Who names their dogs with such names! And what if they’ve already named these puppies as well and we cant change their names. Like having a dog who’s name is gulab jamun! Gosh I can’t stand that. I prayed a little prayer to God and asked sheepishly to Madhuri. I cleared my throat. “ So Madhuri, what have you named the little ones?” I crossed my fingers. “Well honestly we haven’t named them yet. We presumed that whoever eventually becomes their caretaker would want to keep their names.” She said. Intelligent very intelligent I thought in my heart and heaved a huge sigh of relief.

“So which one will you pick?” She asked excitedly. They are two bitches and one dog. As you can see the dog is double the size of the bitches! He eats their food as well! I looked at the innocent little things. She was right. The doggy was fatter than the other two, in fact he didn’t look to be 2 months old. But he had something in his eyes. It was a combination of naughtiness and love, a sparkle I can never forget. The other two were cute too but I fell in love with him the moment I set eyes on him. “We’ll take the dog.” Di and I said in unison. I looked at her and smiled. I guess we were both thinking the same thing. My mum courteously asked how much we need to pay for him. But the family refused. “We don’t sell our dogs. We just want someone nice to take care of them, that’s all.” Madhuri said. We thanked them and were all set to go. Since di was driving and mum was sitting in the front with her. I was told to keep the pup with me. I picked him up gently. He resisted a little and looked curious and nervous in my hands. He was like a fur ball. Being a Japanese spits, he had nice pure white hair. And since he was a little plump too he seemed like a teddy bear to me. I sat down calmly and placed him on my lap and off we went. My mother had a brilliant idea on the way that why not take the pup to Rita aunty, the vet and get him get his first shots. That ways we won’t have to make a separate trip to her. While on the way I saw that our new member of the family was trembling on my lap. “Ma the doggy is shivering. I hope he isn’t feeling too cold.” I said. It was February and its cold in Delhi at that time. “ I’m sure he’s fine Geetika. I think he’s just scared with new people around him. Maybe it’s his first trip in the car!” Mum proclaimed. Di agreed. “Just pat him Gea. He will feel better.” She said. I did as I was told. And anyways he was soooo adorably cute that I couldn’t help but pat him. After a few minutes I felt warm on my lap. He had settled in quite comfortably I thought, satisfied. We reached the vet’s place in another 10 minutes and I got out, picking him up from my lap. I suddenly felt very cold on my trousers from where I picked the dog up. I looked down and saw a huge wet patch right on the beginning of my legs! And to top it all I was wearing a brand new white trouser. No wonder he eased out and was normal after sometime. He relieved himself on me!! My sister looked at me, my shocked face and starting laughing loudly. “Look mom, Geetika got the pup’s first piss; on her pants! Hahahahaaha. “Shut up, stop laughing and hurry inside before everyone thinks it me who’s done this. I looked at the dogs face. I saw him grinning. He had this satisfaction on his face, I could see it. He got me. And this was only the beginning.