With crispy cold mornings, cobalt blue skies and bone-warming sunshine, winter is really and truly here.
Its that season when I can schedule “soaking the sun” as an important activity for the day. The dogs love it too. Bundles of doggy furriness flop around me, stirring and snoring gently in unison.
As the sun moves towards dusk and our long evening walk commences, these bundles turn into my escort service. Monkeys are chased away, naughty school kids are given doggy glares, body rubs and loving licks bestowed on yours truly, chase-my-tail-and-yours-too-games played on the golf course
…and then we all return home for some doggy treats and my evening tea.
This is our third winter here. Some things remain the same and others have changed irrevocably…
This winter will be bleak and grey, even when the sun shines and the sky remains brilliantly blue. One furry bundle of doggy love has gone to Doggy heaven. There will be no Tinku-Tiger waiting impatiently at the door for the morning/evening/anytime walk. On our apartment stairs, when I sit and drink tea, when I knit and read the newspaper, when I come out with bowls of food for meals…no Tinku-Tiger will come and lean heavily on me. He will not jump up and down and then sit straight and still for his breakfast bowl. He will not chase monkeys, dogs, pine-martins, kites and stray cyclists.
A speeding 4WD tore out his life in just 5 seconds. No yelp, no cry, no nothing. One minute he was sprinting across the road to join the others and the next minute he was still and quiet and dead. It was one of those evenings when I had been visiting friends. I parked the car and there he was, lying still on the side of the road, eyes glazed and limbs stiff.
I am thankful that Tinku-Tiger didn’t die writhing in pain. I am glad that he was doing what he loved best (tearing around madly) when he went.
I am sure he is in Doggy Heaven where he can jump high into the sky and give the cruising kites a heart attack, where he can climb up the pine trees and make the monkeys fall off the branches in shock, where he can run and run and then come and lean next to someone who loves him and scratches his neck just the way the girls and me did!
And then, as per the amazing ways of Nature, K-lo has given birth to some mystery puppies. The number of pups, the coloring and gender, the exact location—its all a mystery. This intrepid Mom has found a peculiar burrow under our apartments and the pups are somewhere inside. K-lo comes out of that burrow, eats a big bowl of food ( with 3 spoons of asli ghee thrown in…she’s a new Mommy, after all!) and vanishes inside the mystery burrow.
I am watching and waiting for the pups to appear. Right now, it’s the time for respecting K-lo’s secret and giving her what she needs most—lots of food, lots of food and a little bit of privacy!
