Queen-like Grace and our beloved garden
She will not just sit anywhere, if you please. Like a master of all she surveys, she is to be found perched nimbly on the wrought iron table at the centre of the garden. Not for her the lowly ground under the chairs or by a corner, as beings like her are wont to. From this vantage point, she lords over the entire house, ready to greet us as we appear, first thing in the morning.
Her food gets an initial, delicate sniff of approval as she circles it, and only then will she deign to ingest it.
Her gait is queen like, sedate and agile, head cocked intelligently as she all but interjects to participate in our conversation. It’s not for nothing that we named her Grace.
The Jalandhar administration awoke from its slothful slumber recently to the fact that the population of stray dogs in the city has reached an alarming number and to curb it they are planning an overdrive of sterilisation. So until some diligent animal lovers get a whiff of this story and are up in arms raising slogans against this controversial decision, the municipal corporation may well succeed in their ambitious programme.
But before that is my story of our first stray.
In a weak moment, I accepted the offer from my sister-in-law who found the pups abandoned in a far-off corner of her farm. Loftily, I immediately forgot my gracious assent until one fine day she actually deposited the little ball of fluff in my arms. Alarmed and unprepared for such responsibility, a tiny squeak of demurral escaped me, but she by then had hurriedly reversed out of the driveway before I could change my mind, secretly gloating (I am sure).
So there I was, with a pup on hand and the chrysanthemum seedlings going into the ground. My husband expostulated because we both knew from previous experience the potential of havoc possible due to the lethal combination of newly turned soil, precious seedlings and an inquisitive pup! His glowering subsided slightly, though he continued grumbling under his breath, while I (in a rare moment of instinctive self-preservation) adopted the age-old mechanism of offence is the best defence and patronisingly declared him to be a heartless ogre and that we should be giving back to the community and society and what better way than to adopt a dog that would otherwise be out on the streets? In pained silence, he heard my pompous lecture but nevertheless walked off in a huff, but not before warning me darkly not to mess with his garden.
Of course in the last few months all members of our household have been kept on their toes, immediately replacing any destroyed plants before they come to the notice of hubby dear, keeping the errant pup at bay and visits to the vet for her sterilisation. I am making sure the mayor has one less dog to sterilise. For the record, I would like to state that the veterinarian admired Grace for her alert and perky demeanor and also gave me a pat on the back for adopting a mutt instead of a pedigreed one.
WE KNEW THE POTENTIAL OF HAVOC POSSIBLE DUE TO THE LETHAL COMBINATION OF NEWLY TURNED SOIL, PRECIOUS SEEDLINGS AND AN INQUISITIVE PUP