PET PALACE By Iddris Seidu
people & their pets
Look out for the Arab Times series, the Pet Palace, and read about how people and their animals enrich each other’s lives. The Palace welcomes submissions by our readers. If you’d like to tell the world about your pet, send us a photograph and accompanying article for publication.
— Editor
Zee
is a very well-behaved dog, and has a very helpful talent. Johnny, before he joined his new company, was in the ministry, and had lot of free time on hand. He used to spend much time with Zee and taught him a lot of tricks. But of all the tricks, fetching things came in very handy for Johnnie when he broke his leg and was relegated to the wheel chair.
You just need to point to an object and Zee would immediately get it for you clutching it between his jaws. Just that the object should be small enough to fit in his bite. But sometimes, Johnnie also has trouble with Zee’s fondness to get things. When the dog has nothing to bring to anybody, he would snatch things from people’s hands and run away, only to bring it back to them. But some guests, unused to his ways, would get the scare of their lives. Some ladies have had their handbags snatched to their consternation, and they coo and yell, because there may be something valuable in it. Then Johnnie will have to calm them down, and before he explains Zee would have already returned his haul.
Though he is hairy and cute, he is a slightly big dog, which makes his getting-the-things habit a bit enervating for people. Once he ran into the lift and the lift went off. A few seconds later, there was a scream heard from the top floor. Johnnie, guessing what might have happened, ran up and there he found a mother and child stood frozen facing a perplexed dog in the lift.
Johnnie had a leg fracture a couple of months ago. He was bedridden for some time, and Zee was always close to him. “He took better care of me than my wife”. He lies down on the floor near the bed and waits for orders. “I came to know his true intelligence at that time”, says Johnnie. Zee responded to all his commands more quickly than otherwise, as if he knew that his master was in some kind of trouble and orders have to be taken more seriously. He was very helpful. As days went by, he even began to understand words, and there was no need even to point at things. Johnnie would just have to say “TV remote” and off he would go to fetch it from wherever it was. He is very good at finding things also.
Those were in fact the best days for Zee, because in a roundabout way he was getting what he wanted: playing getting-the-things, while at the same time he was also being a very obedient and loving dog. Now Johnnie has got him a rubber ball so that whenever Zee is feeling a bit desultory, he would throw the ball and ask him to fetch it. That brings back the flush of happiness to his face.