Death of a PUPPY DOG!!

A grim subject, I know. Some of you might find the title alone to be very appalling. But I gotta write what I gotta write.

I'm not your typical dog admirer. I mean, sure I can admire them when they are tied with a leash to some part of the house and don't come anywhere close to me. I know its cruel, to keep a dog tied always... not letting it have any freedom. I am not cruel. I'm just plain scared of them. When visiting family friends or relatives, I demand that the dog be confined to a place away from me. I'm sure the dogs must hate me.

I hadn't always been like that. I mean, living in a joint family, my cousins had dogs...Tiger, Sheroo... and I had played with them as a kid. I guess what got me scared of them was when one of them, sort of ALMOST bit me. I was playing around as usual and one of them just got violent for a second. If not for my brothers, I think I would have got the injections on that day.

So there ended any sort of comfort I had with the canines. That has been the case ever since. And astonishingly, I don't seem to scared of the street dogs. Its only the pet ones. Wierd huh?? I know.

A few days ago, as my mom went towards her car to leave some relatives to the station, we noticed this puppy dog underneath her car. It was yelping, crying for help maybe. It seemed discomforted by something. Just wouldn't budge, no matter how hard we tried. With a lot of difficulty, my uncle managed to get it out but even so, it came out yelping real loud. It kept looking at us and crying... maybe asking for help, but we proceeded to our routine.

When all of us got back home and retired for the night, I could still hear it crying in the middle of the night. My room was filled with the sounds of the dog and I slept that night commenting, "Oh this bloody dog is ruining my sleep". And so, I dont remember when I slumped into my slumber.

I woke up the next morning, a sunday, pretty tired. Did the morning routine and then Mom sent me over to our neighbours to find out something. As I left the gate, a gory sight met my eyes. I will never forget that. The puppy dog laid there dead, just across the window from my room.

A lifeless body. An already decaying body. I just froze there... hoping half scared that I might see a movement..some movement. For the very first time in years I think, I was not scared of a dog. I wanted to see it alive. I really did. I stood there and couldn't see any movement. I didn't know what else to do. I went back inside to my home and told my Mom about what I had seen.

I cried and said, "The poor thing was asking for help maybe, it was crying all night and I was cursing it. Now its no more." I just went back to my room and sat there near the window, just looking at it. Mom meanwhile asked the caretakers of our colony to have it buried somewhere, properly.

As I sat watching for a while, I suddenly saw another dog come up to it and sniff the puppy. I thought to myself, "Oh god No, please don't eat it". I was about to rush down to shoo the other dog away when I saw it leave by its own.

The other dog, all grown, went to the empty plot in front of ours.... went sniffing for a while and finally stopped at one point. To my amazement, it started digging with its paws at a violent pace. This scene was just too much for me. I just couldn't control my tears and moved away from there, choosing to do something else, divert my mind and keep myself busy with something else.

I wanted to ignore the death of the puppy dog. How rude of me!!! My cowardice!!

I managed to sum up a little courage and returned to my window. The colony caretakers hadn't yet started on their job. But the other dog already had. It managed to drag the puppy dog towards the other end of the road, to a safe corner and was still digging. I wondered, was it the puppy dog's mother???

We left in the afternoon to visit some more relatives and returned only later in the night. I don't know what became of the two dogs-- who buried the puppy dog. I didnt even ask. But none of them were there. The next morning I couldn't locate the spot where the dog was digging. Neither could I locate that particular dog in the colony.

It got me thinking again about how indifferent we can be towards suffering...of Humans as well as that of the animals....and realise our errors only when its too late. I wouldn't like to give a moral or anything here. I just wanted to tell a story of my experience...the story of a cute puppy dog, who now lays somewhere across from me.