Barking mad

I love dogs. Those of you who know me would know of the lengths I go to to make friends with them. And you would also have experienced my clucking and conversations with dogs –stray and the ones on a leash.
Short shrift
We buy fish from this shop on Sus Road. Not much of a shop, it is basically a big courtyard that has been walled with tables that are regularly loaded with pomfret, prawns, surmai, bangda, crabs, halwa, tisrya and varieties I am not familiar with.
There below the tables lurks this 12 inch tall black dog. She’s tiny, really innocent to look at and always seems to be well fed. Normally, she wags her tail and comes happily to look at me. If she’s asleep, I wake her up and she comes to sniff my hand, always.
That day was no different. For me that is. I bought my pomfret and noticed the black baby dozing under the table. As always, I clucked her awake and as always she woke up and groggily looked at me. And so I did the next in our series of associations-I put my fingers in front of her nose so that could sniff and I’d give her head a pat. Nervous about these small dogs I have always been, simply because they are known to snap for the sake of it. But this one has desi blood in her which thus far had me imagine she was different from the rest.
That was till the bitch snapped growled and gave me a disgusted look all together. Now I’v decided never to talk to her again. Kutti, you see!
The big one
Later in the day, I was to go for a haircut with a friend. She’d recommended this hairstylist who was starting out on his own. We reached there and in an area cordoned off under the staircase I saw a big warm face – of a Saint Bernard.
Disappointed yet again to see the breed in Pune – our temperatures are nowhere close to what the dogs are meant to live in- my heart melted. More so since the poor thing was in a cage slightly bigger than him. And I couldn’t help but talk to the mutt. When he got up, I expected the gentle giant to be either amused or at least tolerant of my cooing. Hairy beast showed me his teeth and barked. I jumped, startled shocked and sad.
Mr Red eyes is named Bruno and lives in that excuse for a “home” day in and out. Summer rain or winter. Don’t blame him for being disagreeable to humans. But hello, I love dogs.
The first family
Just you ask Houdini, Thele (pups), Kiara (mom) and Krunk (old uncle) and they will tell you about the mad woman who keeps a look out for them on their morning walks. And having seen them, runs down six floors of her building and out of the gate only to get them to lick her face off and to have her hair filled with dry leaves, those sticky fruit, hair and of course dog breath – everything they carry rather generously on them.
But I don’t complain. The pleasure is to see mom and kids walking with their gorgeous pink tongues and wet black noses, even from a distance. As it is to see old man Krunk now heaving through a smaller walk yet obviously delighted with himself and the world around.
The fun is when T H K meet Krunk who is walked alone since he can’t keep pace with the monsters. Though they stay in the same house, and have met maybe 40mins ago when they left on their walk, they go making noises and licking each other like they haven’t met in days. As they do when they jump and meet me twice on the same walk!
That’s the fun of having a dog. Its only love.