Shifting into a new house always began with a promise – “We will not repeat the same mistakes.”
This basically meant, not encouraging strays, and not getting too attached to any new animal.
Since every new neighbourhood has at least one opinionated, excessively loud individual who can mobilize the entire colony into animal haters, we have always tried to keep a low profile – off the grid sort of.
Feed them – try not to be seen; call them – try not to be heard… etc.
Incidentally our comprehensive Constitution of India has laws protecting animals and those who feed and look after strays.
Anyway, our nth house in Salt Lake began with a similar promise. And for the nth time we spotted some skinny four legged creatures on the very first day! One was heavily pregnant and we decided that we would have to feed her (and the other thin dogs in the gang) but would have nothing, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with her pups.
The pups arrived and the monsoons, with them.
‘Mamma dog’ (that’s how original we were when it came to naming) had littered across the street in the garden of an unoccupied house. There was no shelter and since the pups, their mother and ‘Mashi’ (an older female dog who would watch over the pups when the mommy was away) were all in plain sight, getting drenched we threw our garage doors open for them. The cozy little place was made for the pups who looked more like sausages. Somewhere down the line Mamma dog realized that she had found the perfect crèche and visiting her kids once a day was more than enough. One thing led to another and the ‘pups’ (a nomenclature to differentiate them from the ‘dogs’ we had) became permanent members of our family.
There are many stories about them, but this one is about Wally. She was the cutest little pup who could bring down the roof with her preemptive howls. Apparently not much has changed. The pups are still ‘pups’ six years down the line and our darling Wally is as brave as ever!
Last week, our ever elusive electrician decided to pay us a visit, just when we were about to head for our afternoon siesta. Nivedita moved from room to room showing the electrician what all was needed to be done. Then the shrieks woke us all up.
Wally decided that the electrician couldn’t be trusted. Dogs can sense danger.
I don’t know what set her off. She probably didn’t like the way he tinkered around with the AC remote or perhaps it was the switch board… Her siblings Master and Brandy were indifferent and as my sister was in the same room so technically the outsider was outnumbered 4:1.
However, Wally decided not to take any chances. She somehow hoisted herself onto the window ledge and before my horrified sister could stop her, before the electrician knew what was going to happen, she took a flying leap though the first floor window into the garden below!
We feel so proud when our neighbours stop to ask us whether it was really true that one of our brave dogs dived out of the window seeing the electrician! We could of course pretend that Wally was practicing for high jump for the next Olympics but I doubt if it would work. Meanwhile her fame has travelled far and wide and I am sure the thugs in the locality have all been informed that our house is safe to rob as the dogs will flee out of the window if they take time off to walk in through the doors.
Getting back to what I was saying-
Luckily…
#Wally landed on her feet, unhurt
#The dogs on the ground weren’t in the garden (don’t get along with the occupants on the 1st floor)
#She didn’t land on any cat (it had been raining)
#Although this story will be doing the rounds, at least 60% of our dogs aren’t scared cats
#We do some stories of dogs saving the day in our kitty (which I will reserve for later)
I don’t clearly remember if we got our afternoon siesta though!
four legged nonsense 