Our pets and their funny idiosyncrasies

We have kept over a dozen pets, of various breeds of the canine species, at our home, at various periods of time. Most of them had their typically quintessential habits, when it came, especially, to eating. The funniest was Johny, a while Pomeranian, who could have his belly ‘felt as full’ literally, after I gestured to him with a pretendplay, of carrying a chickenbowl in my hands and offering him as if his feed. Lo and behold! He would even wipe the corners of his snout with his lolling tongue, as if to cleanse the soaked area.

As he was witty when he was alive, Johny in his death made us all cry since it was almost mercy-killing we had to agree to after the vet’s advice. Micky succeeded him in our kennel. He was a shade better joker than Johny. Invariably after chasing the monkeys in our backyard, he would get slapped, and return to us sheepishly, when he knew he would be poked for his pusillanimity. But then he had the guts to pretend as if he was ready again for a renewed fight with the rhesus family. He had an uncanny sense of judging our land-lord’s undesirable presence in our rented house once, when he would spare all others and keep barking at him only, much to his embarrassment.

Ruby, a black Labrador, was the darling of everyone in the family. She knew how to preserve her food and take a literal rain-cheque on it. Once I offered her half-a-dozen slices of bread. She wasn’t perhaps feeling hungry then. I put them in her bowl. She knew that there was a visiting-cat in our house too, who would steal or eat away her stuff. I had hardly turned to my room, when on looking back, I noticed Ruby hiding the slices by digging some earth and covering them with sand.

Chhoti, a Tibetan Terrier, was though very cute and sensible, but she couldn’t control her desire to eat carrots. She could even be audacious to the extent of climbing the shelves in the kitchen on the sly, and walk away with the best piece of carrot in the vegetable bucket. Chhoti was no way different from the brown retriever at a friend’s house who could open the fridge to eat up all the mangoes!

The latest set of pets in our house is that of a black pug called Mike and a Husky, Max. Being an Alaskan breed, Max is fond only of rice and curd. He can drink a jug full of lassi in one go. We at times wonder how he picked up this desi choice of cuisine and from where!

The other day my son took Mike, the black pug, to his house and phoned after a couple of days that Mike was not eating his stuff. He told us that despite chicken being offered, he wouldn’t even taste it. My wife asked him if they weren’t giving him enough cucumber to eat before anything, he answered in the negative. “Oh my God,” she exclaimed, “I forgot to tell you that he doesn’t eat anything if he is not given cucumbers as starters!” Five-star pets you see!