18 April 2007, the youngest member of our family was born. Everything was new. It was a world waiting to fill her curiosity and receive her unadulterated love in return. All she wanted was a pat on her head, some belly scratching, some delicious food, and lots of sleep beside her humans.
I remember the first time I saw her, with her 9 other sisters and 1 brother. She was so tiny! The smallest in a litter of eleven puppies wriggling around the entire floor. Till that point of time, I was ‘oh so scared of them’… the little bodies that pressed around my feet, that pulled at the end of my jeans, that were nibbling away at my toes, that were barely any larger than the size of my palm.
I was scared of them! But only until that day.
When the puppy mill hits you, the heart just melts, and all you want to do is to cuddle and love them. I came close to that. I picked one, then another, and another, and I knew I wanted… no rather I needed to have one of those puppies adopt me. And that was just the beginning of my baby story!
She had to stay with her mom for three months before she could join Us…and those three months were kind of the longest three months of my life, given that it was also the official study leave for my freshman year’s final exam. In India, most universities have a yearly or annual examination system, where students are given a good three months to prepare for the impending doom of undergraduate examination.
After the first day that I saw her, I came back home and asked my mother to please agree to the idea. She loved animals of all shapes and sizes. Trust me! We are imagining a woman here who talks to crows at breakfast, cows by afternoon, and stray dogs by evening. She once lifted a baby goat and asked me, “go ahead, touch him, he is so soft and cute.” I ran away in terror. Probably the baby goat was more terrified of me than me of him, but who am I kidding here. Animals of all shapes and sizes, back then, gave me the hibby jibbies.
Back home, we had numerous conversations about first whether to adopt a puppy was a practical idea, who will take care of her, who will walk her, feed her, tend to her everyday needs. At least, that’s what I think we talked about. Perhaps that’s what my parents talked about. My younger brother and I were only worried about her name, where will she sleep – with him or me; how will our extended family react, because frankly, many of them were extremely scared of dogs and we were determined to spring her as a surprise; what will we do during winter for her.
The apprehension mixed with excitement was unending and yet the three months passed away soon enough. Finally we were going to go and get her. But wait who’s ‘her’? We weren’t yet decided as to which one would ‘she’ be out of the 9 female pups in the litter.
We went around to see them all a second time. They were no longer spotless balls of white with cute lil’ pink noses. Rather some of them were covered with just about too many spots! They were all running about and playing on the rooftop when we arrived, while their mother kept a watchful eye.
I was too confused!
How can you choose just one puppy among nine amazing power pups! How do you choose who you will spend your entire life with?
I was bemused, perplexed and utterly at a loss…they were all just so adorable. How could I choose?
I got busy watching them at play, pulling at each others ears, playful fights, and then the ‘survival of the fittest’ strategy playing where a bigger pup, Fatso, pushed the others off a tub to make her own place. Just when Fatso left her ‘tub throne’ to mind the others, another pup quietly climbed onto the tub throne and sat there all pleased. Just like that, without a fight, she mounted her throne like a diva and settled down.
I gently picked her up from the tub, looked into her eyes and chuckled to myself – Pirate! She had a natural black patch on her left eye. “Mum I have found the one,” I smiled.
My mother walked forward and gently turned the pup around, observing and then skeptically asked – “are you sure? She has a black patch dear, wouldn’t one of the others be good?”
But I was firm, I wanted Pirate. Somehow, Pirate was very different from the rest, at least I thought so. Calm, quiet, and extremely clever with her ways.
Pirate’s mother looked up at me. Seemed like she was telling me something… what was it? I looked down into her eyes. She seemed to give me a questioning look and then just came up to Pirate. Pirate was at my feet, frolicking around with the Fatso. She nuzzled at Pirate, and licked her lovingly.
She had realized that yet another of her litter was to leave. All these strangers at her doorstep were just about to take them all away- one at a time!
Somehow, at that moment, I felt like a heartless being who was separating a mother from her child. I gave it a second thought, and in a fraction of a second, I also knew that if otherwise, the pups would have to go away anyway. The lady of the house wouldn’t allow 11 Dalmatians prancing around her home.
The mother was taken away downstairs soon after.
Pirate got bundled up into the basket that I had brought along to take her away in. She just didn’t want to leave. She howled and yelped, and I almost cried as I realized we were separating her from her own family just to give her an adoptive home. But at the same time, I hoped, she would soon accept us as her pack. I will learn how to run with her, howl with her, talk with her, and play with her. I just hoped she would give us a chance.
We hailed a cab. The driver looked suspiciously at us – ‘usme kya hai madamji?’ (What’s there inside that basket madam?). Before Ma could stop me, I blurted out, ‘kutta hai-uska bacha’ (It’s a puppy). The driver immediately inquired if we were sure we could hold on to it and it won’t bite him or get onto him. We just opened the basket and showed him the little thing that we were taking home. He giggled to himself and found the entire situation quite amusing. Pirate’s occasional yelps and little barks made three pairs of eyes fixate on her to ensure she was fine.
But she wasn’t fine at all! We realized that as soon as we were able to drag her away from the view of the excited driver and into the safe haven which we called ‘home.’ For Pirate, however, not only didn’t she identify with us, but she also didn’t know this strange place. Had I been in her place, I would have cried my eyes out. And that’s what she just did. Ma reflected that she must be missing the rest of the litter. I just sank down beside Pirate trying to calm her down.
My bundle of joy didn’t seem so happy…how could I be?
After crying around, trying to get into all nooks and crannies in the house, exhausted from the journey and ordeal, she finally fell asleep. She would be awake in an hour, I knew, yet her tiny sleeping body was what gave me peace then.
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