Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Rinky was the cutest pup!


“You know Amma, Rinky was the cutest pup”, my daughter broke her silence. We lay in her bed, remembering the stray pup who died in his sleep that evening in his favorite place—beneath our car.

Rinky’s mom was a stunner. She was black and lean and stood out among other stray dogs in the locality. This was her second litter. All the three pups in her first litter had died. These pups were born in an isolated outhouse in the residential layout. In the brood of seven, only two were black like the mom. The rest were in varying mix of brown and white. “You know Amma, their dad is that brown and white dog. You must have seen him”. I hadn’t, but thought she must be right.

As they grew older, some of them got more adventurous and ventured out to explore. Kids loved the pups. My daughter was inconsolable when one of them died under the Corporation's van. Soon the pups grew in size and became really chubby and adorable.

We warned the kids against playing with the stray pups, which they often ignored. I am not exactly that fond of dogs, and prefer to admire them from a distance and detested when the pups followed us in our post dinner walks. It was like they had adopted us rather than the other way around.

Soon their number was reduced to three—Rinky and Pinky, both brown, and Musky, who was black. They always slept under our car. When I woke up in the morning, I usually found them sleeping, all curled up. I loved that scene. They always ignored my protests and made it a point to run around me or jump at me as though they sensed my uneasiness. My daughter would say, “It’s only a puppy, why are you so scared?” These pups made friends with our neighbor’s ferocious Great Dane. We were worried that he might kill them, but they got along so well.

Two days back, we noticed that Rinky was not eating anything. His neck was swollen and he looked like he would die soon. He didn’t suffer much, he died the next day. I never thought I would ever miss a dog, especially some stray dog, but Rinky will be missed very much!