we adopted a dog recently...he came to us when he was very very young...too young to be separated from its mom. But like a lot of indie dogs, this one was abandoned by him mom, so said the FB post which led us to him.
This phase of my life will forever be known as "growing up with Tulo", because life has pretty much revolved around Tulo (cotton in Bengali) for the last 4 months or so.
We as a couple don't have kids yet, and although my wife does have a lot of experience around kids, I have barely touched one. At an age where I think am experiencing my quarter life crisis, I still haven't picked up a baby, and once when forced too, was so awkward that the mom was worried I'll drop the baby.
But I have had a lot of dogs, and have seen them grow up from tiny cute puppies to headstrong teenagers, to mature friends & brothers, and dying old men. Thats one thing about having dogs, unlike people who age along with you, you experience a dog going through a full lifetime in just a stage of your life. I have had dogs forever, since I was a baby. Some died young, some were given away, but Jimmy lived with me as I grew up and matured. The only time our ages matched was when we both were teens.
Anyways as you see your dogs grow up, at different stages of your growing up, you experience new things. You get to be a brother, a father and all that at some point or the other.
Growing up with Tulo has been the father stage for me. All those feeling that you hear about and read about, all the responsibilities, you live them with your dog. Be it being concerned when he breaks his first milk canine (especially because it was really you who pulled it by mistake in a wild tug of war game), to understanding their physical limitations as a pup, to seeing their brains develop and learn new skills and smells, to a new found sense of responsibility for something living and reacting, every day is a new thinking process.
Forever whenever someone use to talk about their kids, baby or older, I would always equate it to some behaviour that one of my dogs would have shown. Just that, most of the times, I couldn't say it out at the risk of offending doting mothers and fathers. But pups are so much like babies.
Growing up with dogs also makes you think of a lot of human behaviours. Discrimination is one.
Tulo is a very boisterous dog, the only out and out extrovert in our small family. He loves dogs, people, people with dogs, kids, babies, crows, frogs, leaves...and he loves them wildly. He gets mad excited every time he sees any one of the above...and endlessly tugs at the leash (yes leash, more about that in PS) to get to distance which lets him put atleast a outstretched paw on his object of his affection. And that is where the problem is. Somehow Tulo believes the only way to show affection is to cuddle his object of desire with outstretched long nailed paws. This is ofcourse a no-no with babies, and do whatever you like, just don't eat it with crows, frogs and leaves. Buts its other dogs and kids which prompted this post.
Most fellow dog owners allowed this behaviour on Tulo's part for a first couple of times, but now very actively turn their dog around in the opposite direction the moment they see him screeching and scratching his way towards them. This saddens Tulo quite a bit, he just sits there on his haunches, staring longingly at the other dogs, and once every few minutes begs me to let him go, meet his friends. I, like any responsible owner, who needs to live in our human made society, restrain him ofcourse.
There is also the case of me not letting him meet his beautiful child hood crush, who also has a crush on him. But she being a Indie who is actually on the roads, is full of ticks, which she happily transmits to our white and pretty Tulo. and So that meeting is also off. Ofcourse Tulo and his girlfriend both hate me for it. She usually looks at me with such disgust, even cliched bollywood villian of the lovestory fathers would be put to shame. And it breaks my heart. Here is a dog who just wants to play with his fellow kind, or meet his girlfriend for some platonic loving and we human masters restrict them Mind you, the other dogs don't mind you. They are happy to be scratched, some desperately so. Meeting your own kind has its own pleasures I guess. But the owners are the one who are scared, who restrict their dogs.
Some time back I was thinking about being bullied in school by other kids. At that point I thought that its just natural behaviour on part of kids. It is ultimately survival of the fittest, we have seen countless videos of bird chicks jostling for food and the stronger chick pecking the weaker one, sometimes to death. So how different is it for kids. But wonder if that really is the case. The difference is that we, human parents teach the kids who to bully, who to discriminate. We are the ones who draw the line, divide us all between us and them.
Maybe the signals that we send kids at a young age actually lead to the discrimination they grow up with. In the case of Tulo and his friends, I am already seeing this. His dog buddies who were happy to be scratched by him, now kind of turn their heads when they see him. And guess its because thats the behaviour they have learned from their masters. Same goes for Tulo, now when he see's his erstwhile girlfriend, he doesn't become so desperate. And his girlfriend also approaches with caution. Seems she to has understood this seperation of classes amongst dogs.
PS: Yep we keep our dog on leash. I tried otherwise, when he was a kid, and he was getting trained quite well. Would come to us when called (ofcourse with the lure of a treat), and was also following us wherever we went. But then the excited pawness whenever he saw people started causing a problem. So for now, he is mostly on leash, once he grows up a bit, maybe not.
This was written some time back...and not published...I wonder why? Tulo is grown up now, and he is our family, and the family is as complete as it will be...he did over last couple of years make a couple of friends, high breed dogs who's owners had the maturity to understand the needs of their dogs. Sadly one moved out few months back, but the other is still here.
