The Dog family

At some time during the last two years, there have been a few changes in the canine crew members of our building. Blackie 1 and Blackie 2 migrated to better climes (I hope) while their mother went ahead and delivered a litter of 8 puppies. Well, one and two is fine, it is a little at a time, but eight is six too many, I declared to my thrilled news-bearer son.

Now when there are 9 puppies and 'n' children, there is chaos, mayhem and a lot more. The puppies were safely ensconced deep under a few bushes in a corner of the garden. Mummy dog was nowhere to be seen when the puppies needed her most, which was all the time. Daddy dog, not the black one but a new brown guy who we shall call James Bond, was nowhere to be seen. Besides, he kept growling at them to stop wandering around, so he wasn’t much use anyway.

The children ranging from ages 2-16 and maybe higher fought about names, carrying rights, taking home rights, cuddling rights and putting to sleep rights. In short, they squabbled all day long. Thank God for schools! Here again there was a crisis of leadership as the naming ceremony began. Some pups were white with black or brown markings, one was white all over. The mother herself is a handsome lady with dark brown markings all over. It was time for a change in strategy. But first, they had to figure out the girls from the boys.

A simple physical probe would not suffice. Some serious under the tail research ensued and a decision was taken about the girls and boys. The all-white one was a girl, it was declared – she was named Dyna (after a soap!). The girl dogs were called Sweety, Browny, Whitie. The boy dogs were named Jackie (?), Blackie and Tyson. So much for a new naming strategy! One dog showed an amazing talent of wriggling away from loving human contact and taking off at top speed to the nearest bush – Ferrari it was. Ferrari's look-alike sibling was Duplicate (gender unknown).

A year later, Blackie delivered a litter and Sweety (who had earlier been declared a girl) turned out to be a boy. The others? Well, that is the story of another post.